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● 08.01.15

● Links 1/8/2015: Steam Sale, blackPanther OS 14.1

Posted in News Roundup at 3:43 pm by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

=> ↺ Rackspace reaching out to women with ‘Linux for Ladies’

• Law wasn’t proving lucrative for Jodi McMaster, who at 54 found herself eking by with contract legal work and freelance copy-editing gigs.

=> ↺ Installing Linux on a Mac, Why Bother?

• Lately, I found myself being asked by many of my readers, as well as some of my friends, if it’s worth installing Linux on their Mac, so I decided to write this editorial and explain the situation from my point of view.

Desktop

=> ↺ HP ProBook 455 G2: A low-cost business notebook for Ubuntu lovers [Review]

• Most of the laptops you can buy come with Windows pre-installed. Obviously the latest batch have Windows 10 on them, with more being announced daily. If you prefer Linux you can either replace Microsoft’s operating system with your distro of choice, or set up a dual boot configuration.

=> ↺ Andalusia revamps its free software desktop

• The government of Spain’s Andalusia has revamped its free and open source desktop, aimed to become the region’s standard configuration for workstations and laptops. The overhaul focussed on IT management, system integration, support and system scalability. The new standard corporate desktop, GECOS – Guadalinex Escritorio COrporativo eStandar, is designed to handle tens of thousands of workstations.

Server

=> ↺ Life in a Post-Container World and Why Linux Will Play a Diminished Role

• Containers have actually been with us since the late 1990s, but they are not the end of the story. The real transformation will come with a “serverless” future that will completely overturn the ops ecosystem. Companies will go out of business, new ones will spring to life, and thousands of people will have fundamental changes to their jobs. The shift to a serverless future is much bigger than your normal hype cycle — I believe the current container hoopla is a foreshock preceding a 9.0 quake.

=> ↺ Dawn of the data center operating system

• How microservices architecture and Linux containers will tame distributed computing for developers and ops

=> ↺ 30 Sys Admins to Follow on SysAdmin Day

• Systems administrators: They keep our high-tech world up and running. From capacity planning, to 3 a.m. phone calls, to retiring that 10-year-old server that uses more power than your whole house, sys admins do it all. Open source communities would not be able to thrive without the networks, services, and tools that allow for communication and collaboration, and sys admins are the ones who work thanklessly year-round to keep them going.

• July 31 is System Administrator Appreciation Day, a day for all of us to express our undying gratitude for sys admins. Sure, you could buy your favorite sys admin cake and ice cream, or perhaps a nice gift card. You could even go as far as not breaking the server for just one day. You also can follow these 30 sys admins.

Kernel Space

=> ↺ Linux Kernel 3.12.45 LTS Has ARM64 and x86 Fixes, Numerous Updated Drivers

• On the last day of July, Jiri Slaby, the maintainer of the Linux 3.12 kernel series, which is an LTS (Long Term Support) version supported with patches and driver updates for a few more years than normal kernel releases, announced the immediate availability for download of the forty-fifth maintenance release of Linux kernel 3.12 LTS.

=> ↺ See What Systemd 223 Brings New

Graphics Stack

=> ↺ GPU Scheduler Being Implemented For AMDGPU Kernel Driver

• Alex Deucher ended out the month by releasing thirty-one patches that implement a GPU scheduler for the new AMDGPU kernel DRM driver.

=> ↺ AMDGPU Looks Like It Will Be Supported For Mesa 11.0

• Earlier this week I delivered my initial benchmarks of the new AMDGPU Linux driver stack for supporting the AMD Radeon R9 285 “TONGA” and all new/future GPUs like Carrizo and Fiji. The new AMDGPU kernel driver is present in the upcoming Linux 4.2 kernel while on the user-space side there’s separate code branches required for libdrm and Mesa. Fortunately, it looks like that work will be merged soon.

=> ↺ Beignet 1.1 Released With Skylake, SPIR Support, Other New OpenCL Features

=> ↺ Mesa Git Is Now Officially Mesa 11.0

Benchmarks

=> ↺ Benchmarking Debian GNU/Hurd 2015 vs. GNU/Linux

• After a reminder this week from a Phoronix Premium member about some fresh Debian GNU/Hurd benchmarks, here are some fresh results comparing this version of Debian with the Hurd kernel instead of the Linux kernel. The results for this comparison are done against Debian GNU/Linux Wheezy. For those unfamiliar, Debian GNU/Hurd is the GNU user-land but running atop Hurd — similar to Debian GNU/kFreeBSD being powered by the FreeBSD kernel. On the topic of Debian GNU/kFreeBSD, I’ll probably run a fresh kFreeBSD vs. Linux comparison again soon.

=> ↺ Sparkfun’s pcDuino Acadia Benchmarks Against Other ARM SBCs

• Sparkfun’s pcDuino Acadia os a $119 USD development board powered by a Freescale i.MX6 quad-core Cortex-A9 SoC with Mali 400 graphics. There’s 1GB of RAM and other connectivity options for this board.

Applications

=> ↺ CUPS 2.1 Is Adding Basic 3D Printer Support

=> ↺ CUPS (Common UNIX Printing System) 2.1 Will Offer Support for Basic 3D Printers

• Apple announced earlier today that the fourth maintenance release of its popular open-source Common UNIX Printing System (CUPS) 2.0 software and the first RC (Release Candidate) version of CUPS 2.1 are now available for download.

=> ↺ Two Open Source Planetarium Apps For Ubuntu And Derivative Apps

• In this article I will show you two open-source planetarium/stargazing pieces of software: Stellarium and Celestia.

=> ↺ Adobe Brakets 1.4 An Awesome Text Editor Released, Install In Ubuntu 15.04/14.04 Or Derivatives

• Adobe Brackets is a text editor developed by Adobe developers. You will like it if you are a web designer. Brackets window splits into two parts vertical or horizontal both and this unique user interface helps managing multiple documents simultaneously. You can easily install Adobe Brackets in Ubuntu, Linux Mint and other derivatives.

=> ↺ MKVToolNix Review – Powerful Tool to Split, Merge, and Convert MKV Files

• MKVToolNix is a set of tools that can be used on MKV files, which is a video format that grows ever more present in our daily lives. The application falls into a very crowded niche, and there is not much competition for it. Nonetheless, it’s a useful app, and it would be nice to take a closer look at it.

=> ↺ Kodi media player turns 15 with Isengard release

• The XBMC Foundation’s Team Kodi last week released version 15 of its popular, open source Kodi media player and home theater framework.

• The “Isengard” release of Kodi (formerly XBMC) offers enhancements ranging from new chapter support to an improved add-on manager, but the biggest news is the completion of the Android version.

=> ↺ DDrescue-GUI 1.4 Brings A Lot Of Changes

• The latest version available is DDRescue-GUI 1.4, which has been released a while ago, bringing changes and fixes…

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ How To Install Apt-Fast 1.8.3 on Ubuntu And Derivatives

=> ↺ Installing Android Apps on Linux with ARChon

=> ↺ Build your own NAS with OpenMediaVault

=> ↺ How to Virtualise Linux

=> ↺ How To Install Power 2.0 Commands on Ubuntu 15.04 Vivid Vervet

Wine or Emulation

=> ↺ Wine-Staging 1.7.48 Tackles More Direct3D Code, Other Changes

Games

=> ↺ PlayOnLinux 4.2.8 Brings Fixes Only

• As you may know, PlayOnLinux is a frontend for Wine, the popular software for running Windows applications on Linux and Mac OS X.

=> ↺ Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor GOTY Launches on Linux with 50% Price Cut

• Feral Interactive has just revealed that Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor GOTY for the Linux platform has been released, and it can now be purchased with a 50% discount from the Feral and Steam stores.

=> ↺ Middle-Earth Shadow of Mordor Is Easily One Of The Most Demanding Linux Games

=> ↺ Steam for Linux Beta Client Updated with New Features for Big Picture

• The Steam for Linux platform has been updated once more, and a new Beta version of the client is now available to users who have subscribed to that particular branch.

=> ↺ Razer acquires OUYA, Steam security breach, and more open gaming news

=> ↺ Valve Launches Big SteamOS Sale over the Weekend

• Valve is now organizing a SteamOS sale, and it looks like users will be able to pick up quite a few triple-A titles with Linux support in the next few days.

=> ↺ ET: Legacy Is Preparing A New Wolfenstein Enemy Territory Update

• If Shadow of Mordor on Linux is too demanding for your graphics card, you may be interested in the upcoming ET: Legacy update that provides new functionality while retaining compatibility with the legendary Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory (v2.60b) game.

=> ↺ Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor is now on Mac and Linux

=> ↺ Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor Game of the Year Edition Out Now on Mac and Linux

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

=> ↺ KDE Has Created Shashlik, A Way To Install Android Apps On Linux

• As you may know, KDE has created Shashlik, an emulator that permits the installation of Android apps on Linux systems.

• While Android is still Linux because they share the Linux kernel, Google’s OS has its own libraries and services while Linux uses the libraries and services brought by GNU.

=> ↺ Passing the Torch

• I hereby want to announce an open call to find a new maintainer for KDE’s speech recognition efforts.

=> ↺ Kubuntu Paddleboard Club

=> ↺ Akademy 2015 & Kate

• I didn’t do that much work on Kate, I mostly did small bugfixes for the applications bundled with the KDE Applications releases regarding their HiDPI support, finally no Konsole that can’t redraw correctly on scrolling on a HiDPI screen with scaling activated!

=> ↺ It’s the final countdown

=> ↺ Akademy 2015 coming to an end

• During the BoF days from Monday to Thursday, a great many tiny videos were shot of many of the attendees by Dan Leinir Turthra Jensen. These have been edited and cut up and turned into a video explaining, very shortly, what KDE really is. Being a community of people contributing to the development of software, the conclusion is straight forward. See the unsurprising conclusion in the video entitled What is KDE? (webm, mp4, vimeo), created as a tribute to the KDE community and all the amazing people in it.

GNOME Desktop/GTK

=> ↺ GNOME Tracker 1.4 Gets Its First Point Release with Dozens of Improvements and Fixes

• Martyn Russell, the developer of the Tracker semantic data storage software for desktop and mobile devices used by default on the GNOME desktop environment, announced the release of the first maintenance version for Tracker 1.4.

Distributions

New Releases

=> ↺ blackPanther OS 14.1 (Walking Dead) Unleashed Worldwide, Download Now – Video

• The development team behind a very old GNU/Linux operating system, blackPanther OS, had the great pleasure of announcing the immediate availability for download of version 14.1 of their 13-year old distribution, dubbed Walking Dead.

=> ↺ Wifislax 4.11.1 Linux Distro Arrives with Linux Kernel 4.1.3 LTS, Xfce 4.12.3

• The developers of the popular Wifislax Linux distribution based on the well-known Slackware operating system and built around the KDE and Xfce desktop environments announced the release of Wifislax 4.11.1.

=> ↺ Linux Based Solus OS Now Boots in Flat 1.2 Seconds

• Solus OS is a Linux distro that was built from scratch and uses a new desktop environment called Budgie. You can consider it as the next version of the Solus OS as it was built by the same developer team, so they didn’t bother changing the name for a new operating system.

Arch Family

=> ↺ Arch Linux 2015.08.01 Is Now Available for Download, Powered by Linux Kernel 4.1

• You won’t believe this, but it’s already August, so the time has come for the Arch Linux operating system to receive a new installation media that includes all the updates that have been released during the month of July 2015.

=> ↺ Arch Linux 2015.08.01 Has Been Released. Upgrade Now!

• Arch Linux 2015.08.01 has been released and is powered by Kernel 4.1 and includes all the update patches since the 1st of July 2015.

Red Hat Family

Fedora

=> ↺ Most popular web browsers among Fedora users

• Google Chrome is the most popular browser in the world. It is so popular that some call it a new Internet Explorer. But that’s based on global stats. In Red Hat, I’m responsible for web browsers, so I wondered what are the most popular web browsers among Fedora users. So I asked through Fedora accounts on Facebook and Google+: “Which browser do you use the most in Fedora?”

=> ↺ Kdbus, F23 update, FUDCon Pune report, and… is Fedora slowing down?

• If you’ve poked around the running processes on a modern Linux system, you’ve seen something called dbus. You can read more about this on the dbus website, but the basic summary is that it’s a system for passing messages between programs. Mostly, it runs in the background and users don’t ever think about it — but it’s an important part of the “plumbing”, enabling integrated desktop environment notifications for both GNOME and KDE, role selection for Fedora Server, and more.

=> ↺ Fedora 23 in Alpha Freeze, Due August 11

• Matthew Miller wrote today that Fedora 23 construction is well underway and the first public developmental release is due real soon. Version 23 went into alpha freeze Tuesday so all new features are set. Fedora 23 will offer universal package hardening by default, a default local DNS resolver, separate Atomic project out from main distribution, and lots more.

=> ↺ Fedora 23 Alpha 1 Will Be Released On August 11 2015

=> ↺ Fedora Developer Proposed That DNF Should Handle The System Upgrade Toorades

Debian Family

Derivatives

Canonical/Ubuntu

=> ↺ Canonical Releases New Linux Kernel Update for Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr)

• We reported a few days ago, on July 28, 2015, that Canonical released a kernel update for its long-term supported Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr) operating system, patching four kernel vulnerabilities.

=> ↺ Ubuntu Touch Might Receive Hotfixes Before OTA-6, Major GCC 5 Transition in Effect

• On the last day on July, Canonical’s Łukasz Zemczak sent in his daily report about the work done by the Ubuntu Touch developers for the mobile operating system used in the popular Ubuntu phones devices.

=> ↺ Latest Ubuntu Touch SDK Updates Focus on Convergence Features for OTA-6

• On the last day of July 2015, Canonical’s Zoltán Balogh posted an important email on the Ubuntu Touch mailing list, informing us all about the work done lately on the Ubuntu SDK (Software Development Kit) software.

=> ↺ Find the Perfect Linux-Compatible PC with Ubuntu’s Hardware Database

• Linux veterans probably know about this already, but I’ve had a few people ask me how to find Linux-friendly laptops lately, and my answer is always the Ubuntu Certified Hardware Database. Even if you aren’t running Ubuntu, it’ll tell you which laptops and desktops from Dell, HP, Lenovo, and others are most Linux-friendly. If you’re looking for a Linux-compatible PC, this is a great place to start. If it isn’t in that database, though, be sure to Google around—there may be forum threads dedicated to getting your laptop of choice set up with Linux.

=> ↺ uReadIt 3 – The Best Reddit Client For Ubuntu Touch

• As you may know, uReadIt is an open-source Reddit client for Ubuntu Touch, being one of the best native apps for Ubuntu mobile.

=> ↺ You Can Now Watch Flash Content With MPV On Ubuntu

• As you may know, Adobe Flash is not the safest thing on the internet this days. Mozilla even disabled it from the Firefox browser a while, due to the vulnerabilities found lately.

Flavours and Variants

=> ↺ Ubuntu MATE 15.04 Running on the Rikomatic MK808B

• Ubuntu MATE, the latest member of the Ubuntu family, has been spotted running on the MK808B Plus Quad-Core mini TV box device. The device runs with Android 4.4 by default, but a third party developer has tweaked it to run Ubuntu.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ LEGO Smart Home

• We spoke to Bhavana Srinivas and Geremy Cohen from PubNub about their LEGO Smart Home model, a proof of concept project that shows how you can use the Raspberry Pi with communication platform PubNub in order to automate your household electronics and other Internet of Things devices. You can read the full piece in the latest issue.

=> ↺ Compact module runs Linux on quad-core Braswell

• Congatec announced a compact, low power computer-on-module based on Intel’s 14nm “Braswell” SoCs, and featuring triple display outputs, and up to 4K video.

Phones

Tizen

=> ↺ Samsung to release first Tizen Smartphone in Egypt by early 2016

• Interesting news. Egypt is said to be looking at releasing their first Tizen-powered smartphones in the Egyptian markets at the beginning of 2016. That Information is according to Samsung’s IT and Mobile Product Manager, Raafat Khalil said Tuesday. Could this hail the release of the Samsung Z1 or the upcoming Samsung Z3?

Android

=> ↺ Google offers revamped Glass headset to the enterprise: report

• Google is reportedly distributing a new version of Glass for use in specialist sectors.

=> ↺ Silent Circle’s Blackphone 2 to support Android for Work

• Earlier this year, Google made it quite clear to help enterprise-segment with its Android for Work initiative for its mobile operating system. Now, the company has finally announced its expansion plans that now includes 40 companies including device manufacturers, application makers and management providers.

=> ↺ Android for Work Gets Support from Major U.S. Carriers

• Earlier this year, we were reporting on one of the biggest security holes ever affecting Android. In fact, PaloAlto networks had found that that security breach affected almost 50 percent of Android devices, making them vulnerable to an attack that can swap out a user’s pre-installed app with malware that can round up sensitive data. The fact is, concerns about security and other issues have made some enterprises wary of letting users standardize on Android devices.

=> ↺ Android Studio 1.3 (Android IDE Developed By Google) Has Been Released

=> ↺ OnePlus 2 Review Roundup: Solid Android Smartphone And Fantastic Tag Price

• The OnePlus 2 will not become available in the U.S. and Europe until Aug. 11, but the first reviews of the Chinese startup’s second flagship smartphone are already in, and the verdict is a resounding thumbs up from most people who were lucky enough to be given a preview build.

• When it comes to the OnePlus 2′s design, reviewers agree that the device has a solid, comfortable build thanks to the textured sandstone panel on the back and the slight convex shape that curves right into the hands, while still evoking that premium feel with the aluminum frame holding up the device.

Free Software/Open Source

=> ↺ FFmpeg’s Leader Resigns, Hopes To Make Libav Developers Come Back

• Michael Niedermayer, the leader of the FFmpeg project for the past eleven years, has made a surprise announcement today: he’s resigning as its leader.

• Niedermayer is resigning as he no longer feels he’s the best leader for FFmpeg, given the current Libav fork still persisting even after Debian dropped Libav and is returning to FFmpeg.

=> ↺ Open source Copyright Hub unveiled with ’90+ projects’ in the pipeline

• The web has grown up without letting people own and control their own stuff, but a British-backed initiative might change all that, offering a glimpse of how the internet can work in the future. Their work will all be open sourced early next year.

• Britain’s much-anticipated Copyright Hub was given ministerial blessing when it finally opened its kimono today, boasting a pipeline of over 90 projects covering commercial and free uses.

Events

=> ↺ Banks’ Family Values; Texas Linux Fest & More…

• All in the Family: It seems that the Banks family of Los Angeles has taken upon itself to single-handedly invite the wider world to the see and try out the benefits of FOSS and programming. We reported on Keila Banks speaking at OSCON last week, but so has Business Insider and MTV News — and now MSNBC is getting in on the act by having her on Melissa Harris-Perry’s show at 8 a.m. Saturday. Check your local listings.

SaaS/Big Data

=> ↺ Already Partnered with Intel, Cloudera Teams Up with EMC

Databases

=> ↺ Redis open source DBMS overview

• Redis runs on Linux. Although the Redis project doesn’t directly support Windows, Microsoft Open Technologies develops and maintains a Windows port targeting Win64.

• The Redis open source DBMS is available as a BSD license. The Redis community offers support through the official mailing list as well as #redis on Freenode. Commercial support is available through Pivotal, the official sponsor of Redis. Pivotal offers two levels of professional support.

=> ↺ A shout-out to SQLAlchemy

• So here’s a shout-out to Mike B. at SQLAlchemy for his quick work. (And I’m glad the effort of making a good-as-I-can bugreport paid off.)

Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

=> ↺ The document Foundation Released LibreOffice 4.4.5 With Bug Fixes

• The document foundation released another update LibreOffice 4.4.5 which contains 80+ bug fixes over the previous release. LibreOffice is one of the most popular Office app that is also very active. Regular releases makes it more stable and feature-rich. According to the team LibreOffice 4.4.5 replaces LibreOffice 4.3.7 as “still” version for more conservative users and enterprise deployment. Install this update in Ubuntu/Linux Mint or other derivatives to get bug fixes.

=> ↺ Surprises, claws and various articles

• Dear readers, something nice but unexpected came up recently. As you can imagine, preparations for the release of LibreOffice 5 are keeping many people busy these days. Among the things that need to be found is the choice of collaterals and various elements for communication. It could very well be that readers of this blog will have a nice surprise the day LibreOffice 5 is released!

BSD

=> ↺ FreeBSD 10.2-RC2 Released, Riding On Schedule Nicely

• Glen Barber announced the release of FreeBSD 10.2-RC2 today for those wanting to do some weekend BSD testing.

• FreeBSD 10.2-RC2 has changes to pkg, ntpd, nvme, a UEFI loader fix, and an assortment of other bug/regression fixes across the stack.

=> ↺ [FreeBSD-Announce] vBSDcon: September 11 – 13, 2015

• vBSDcon is a technical conference for the various BSD communities that is hosted by Verisign for users and developers of BSD-based systems. vBSDcon 2015 is being held in Reston, VA from September 11 – 13, 2015 at the Sheraton Reston hotel. vBSDcon is an ideal event for systems and network administrators, developers, and engineers with a focus on BSD-based technologies. The early bird registration rate of $75.00 is available through August 13, 2015 at vBSDcon.com.

Project Releases

=> ↺ Apache Mesos 0.23.0 Released

Public Services/Government

=> ↺ Civil society pushing open source in Bulgaria

• The civil society organisation Obshtestvo.bg Foundation has been pressing as well as helping the Bulgarian government to incorporate open source in its legislation. Open source is now the preferred development form for eGovernment projects. The Bulgarian Council of Ministers has voted that the same requirements will be applicable to all government-funded software projects.

=> ↺ US House Opens Up to Open Source

• Providers of open source software recently found another market: the 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives. That market easily will grow to many thousands of potential open source users when the staffs of each representative, as well as the staffs of various House committees, are added to the total.

• Three advocacy organizations — the Sunlight Foundation, the Congressional Data Coalition, and the OpenGov Foundation — last month jointly announced that certain procurement restrictions that had constrained the use of open source technology in the House had been clarified.

• Read more

Openness/Sharing

=> ↺ KDE Plasma Mobile, NPR’s newsroom tool, and more news

Open Data

=> ↺ An open source mapping primer

• You now need a way to embed a map, manipulate the map tiles, and overlay other data onto the map. Leaflet is a popular choice for doing this. It’s an open source Javascript library that lets you easily create “slippy” maps with tiled base layers, panning and zooming, and various layered features such as markers at specific geographical coordinates (i.e. latitude and longitude). It handles interactions with the map, has a fairly rich and well-documented API, and also works with a wide collection of plugin that provide additional features.

Leftovers

Hardware

=> ↺ Powering the Open Data Center

• Open source leadership is a big responsibility for Intel. When we take leadership positions in the open source ecosystem, it pushes us to advance the entire industry along with our company. In that mindset, Intel is investing a tremendous amount to continue expanding the boundaries of what technology can do for the data center and to ensure there is an ecosystem that facilitates the innovation required to meet enterprise demands and spur adoption.

Security

=> ↺ The cyber-mechanics who protect your car from hackers

• “Most manufacturers know there is a problem and they’re working on solutions, but no-one will go public with it,” explains Martin Hunt, who works in automotive penetration testing for UK telecommunications firm BT.

=> ↺ US to rethink hacker tool export rules after mass freakout in security land

• Proposed changes to the US government’s export controls on hacking tools will likely be scaled back following widespread criticism from the infosec community, a government spokesman has said.

• “A second iteration of this regulation will be promulgated,” a spokesman for the US Department of Commerce told Reuters, “and you can infer from that that the first one will be withdrawn.”

• The proposed restrictions are required by the Wassenaar Arrangement, a 41-nation pact that first came into effect in 1996 and which calls for limits on trade of “dual-use goods,” meaning items that have both civilian and military applications.

• In 2013, the list of goods governed under the Arrangement was amended to include technologies used for testing, penetrating, and exploiting vulnerabilities in computer systems and networks.

=> ↺ Remote denial of service vulnerability exposes BIND servers

• BIND operators released new versions of the DNS protocol software overnight to patch a critical vulnerability which can be exploited for use in denial-of-service cyberattacks.

• Lead investigator Michael McNally from the Internet Systems Consortium (ISC) said in a security advisory the bug, CVE-2015-5477, is a critical issue which can allow hijackers to send malicious packets to knock out email systems, websites and other online services.

=> ↺ Botnet takedowns: are they worth it?

• The number of botnets has grown rapidly over the last decade. From Gameover Zeus leveraging encrypted peer-to-peer command and control servers, to Conflicker, infecting millions of computers across the world – botnets are continuing to infiltrate many internet-based services and causing mass disruption, and it’s getting worse.

Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

=> ↺ Palestinian infant burned to death in West Bank arson; IDF blames ‘Jewish terror’

• A one-and-a-half year-old Palestinian infant was burned to death and three of his family members were seriously wounded late Thursday night after a house was set on fire in the village of Douma, near Nablus.

• According to reports, settlers were those who set the house on fire after targeting it with firebombs and graffiti. The Israeli military called the attack “Jewish terror,” while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials echoed the claim, vehemently condemning the attack.

=> ↺ CIA concludes US-led fight against IS a ‘strategic stalemate’: Report

• A year into US-led fight, Islamic State group’s membership levels remain consistent and group has spread geographically

=> ↺ USA: A clone of Israeli national security state

• Over the past decade, Israel lobby groups have founded exchange programmes with US police and homeland security agencies which have imported Israeli policing and national security practices to the US. Groups like the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee recruit delegations of high-level American security officials to liaise with Israeli counterparts in the police, military intelligence and internal security. Hundreds of officers have participated in these trips from departments in a score or more of US cities. New York even has its own police liaison office located inside an Israeli police station.

=> ↺ US to release Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard after 30 years

• The United Sates granted parole to Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard and he will be freed in November. Pollard has been in U.S jail for almost 30 years. However, the U.S. government denied speculations that Pollard’s release is a gesture to placate Israel for softening its opposition to the Iran nuclear deal.

Environment/Energy/Wildlife

=> ↺ California Using Recycled Fracking Water To Irrigate Crops

• California’s governor, a recipient of generous donations from the oil and gas industry, is now responsible for putting dangerous “frack water” into the American food supply.

• As California struggles with a historic drought, some farmers in California’s agriculturally fertile Central Valley turned to a water recycling program, allowing them to irrigate their crops at a fraction of the normal cost. According to Phys.org, the recycled water costs about $33 per square foot, while freshwater could cost as much as $1,500 for the same amount.

=> ↺ Cecil the lion’s brother Jericho shot dead on SAME day Zimbabwe bans hunting

• Zimbabwe has BANNED the hunting of lions, leopards and elephants in a part of the country frequently used by hunters.

• The nation’s wildlife authorities put the ban in place following the outrage overt he death of Cecil the lion.

• Tragically, despite the ban coming in place today, it was announced that Jericho, Cecil’s brother, was shot dead by poachers.

• Bow and arrow hunts, like the one undertaken by the killer dentist Walter Palmer, have also been suspended – unless hunters are approved by the National Parks and Wildlife Authority’s director.

• Zimbabwean authorities said the hunt was illegal and are seeking the extradition of Minnesota dentist Walter Palmer.

=> ↺ Cecil the lion’s brother Jericho shot dead in Zimbabwe by illegal hunters: officials

• Cecil the lion’s brother Jericho has been shot dead in Zimbabwe by illegal hunters, officials said Saturday.

• “It is with huge disgust and sadness that we have just been informed that Jericho, Cecil’s brother has been killed at 4pm today,” the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force said in a statement. “We are absolutely heartbroken.”

Finance

=> ↺ “They bury the values of democracy”

• Yanis Varoufakis spent only five months in office as the Greek finance minister. But even that was enough to drive his colleagues to distraction – and his fans into a frenzy. An encounter in Athens.

PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

=> ↺ The Fourth Video Attacking Planned Parenthood Is Also Full Of Doctored Footage

Censorship

=> ↺ Israel’s secret-keeper seeks censorship reform

• Soon-to-retire military censor envisions civil agency to provide ‘guidance’ rather than censorship to media

=> ↺ Interview: IDF’s secret-keeper seeks censorship reform

• As she prepares to retire next month, the chief military censor wants a steamlined, modern agency to provide advance ‘guidance’ rather than ‘censorship’.

=> ↺ Outgoing IDF chief censor: Israel’s preventive censorship is becoming irrelevant

=> ↺ Marc Shapiro and Jewish Censorship

• For years now Professor Marc Shapiro of the University of Scranton has revealed examples of mind control in Jewish sources. Opinions regarded as too lenient have been expurgated from books of responsa. Opinions once considered acceptable have now been proscribed in the current witchhunt against anything that might not completely condemn secular education. Records of great rabbis reading newspapers, Heaven forfend, have been removed from publications. Rabbis who held Zionist, tolerant, or modern views have had their names removed. Original approbations of great rabbis have been cut from their books so as not to misguide innocent modern readers.

• But thanks to easy access to original uncensored editions and the availability of texts online, this is now out in the open and clear for all to see (who are not blind). In his latest book, Changing the Immutable, Professor Shapiro has provided an invaluable service to the world of Torah scholarship by giving chapter and verse of so many examples of censorship and distortion.

=> ↺ Media practised self-censorship when I was PM, says Dr Mahathir

• “When I was the prime minister, there was press freedom but it is the media itself who did self-censorship, as if they didn’t want to hurt leaders’ feelings. This is the habit that we have in Malaysia,” he said at a book launch in Putrajaya today.

• He also said local mainstream media were too cautious.

• “They think what if leaders don’t like what they write,”he said.

• He added, however, that media like Harakah and The Rocket sometimes went overboard in criticising the government.

=> ↺ Censorship is killing student stand-up

• This attitude is toxic to comedy. Stand-up is nerve-racking enough; if young comics are constantly worried about being banned for speaking out of turn, how are they supposed to take the risks that allow you to grow as a performer? It’s bad enough when students’ unions ban professional comedians, for fear that their jokes will turn unthinking students into lads, Zionists or whatever the fear of the day is. But clamping down on 19-year-olds who can barely remember their lines? That’s laughable.

=> ↺ Politicians slam council chiefs for ‘censorship’ of controversial play about SNP activist

• POLITICIANS have accused West Dunbartonshire Council of censorship after it dropped a play about SNP activist Willie MacRae before telling the show’s producer he could come back if the Labour administration was given the boot in the next elections.

• After a successful run at last year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe , Andy Paterson from Theatre Magnetico said the authority called him asking about the possibility of putting his play 3,000 Trees: The Death of Willie Macrae on at Clydebank Town Hall.

=> ↺ Facebook Censors bianet’s News about Censorship

• Social networking service Facebook censored bianet news “Facebook Censors Kaos GL for ‘nudity’”.

• On July 29, bianet made news of Facebook censorship on Kaos GL, an LGBTI organization, which allegedly ‘violated the community rules’.

• We shared the news on Facebook and then Facebook censored our news stating the original photograph of the news as we used as headline violated the community rules.

=> ↺ When it comes to censorship, WordPress has your back

• Automattic, WordPress’s parent company, has a new transparency report that shows that they’ve bounced 43% of their 2015 copyright censorship demands for being frivolous or invalid.

=> ↺ Censorship is no substitute for enforcement

• Earlier this month, Justice Minister Owen Bonnici announced that his government would be amending archaic obscenity laws to remove the threat of imprisonment for ‘vilification of religion’, while regularising pornography within certain limitations.

=> ↺ Anti-Abbott poster erected by Australian students sparks row over censorship

=> ↺ Anti-Abbott poster erected by Castlemaine Secondary College students sparks row over censorship

=> ↺ Anti-Abbott poster erected by Castlemaine Secondary College students sparks row over censorship

=> ↺ An Artist Took Topless Photos of Women at the New York Supreme Court to Protest Censorship

• In August 2013, Allen Henson, a veteran-turned-photographer, visited the Empire State Building with his girlfriend. Henson took a topless photo of her on the observation deck and never imagined what would follow.

• In 2014, the Empire State Building filed a lawsuit against Henson for over $1 million, arguing he used the premises for commercial purposes (though Henson insists it was not a photoshoot and was exclusively for personal use) and ruined the building’s “reputation as a safe and secure family-friendly tourist attraction,” reports the Huffington Post.

=> ↺ Instagram bans #goddess from site

• Photo-sharing app Instagram has banned the hashtag #goddess because “inappropriate” images were allegedly shared, media reports said.

=> ↺ The Holes In Instagram’s Censorship Of Eating Disorders

• Recently, the social media site reversed its ban on searches for #curvy after users protested it by using the hashtag #curvee. Mashable reported Instagram now plans to filter out inappropriate content using the hashtag, stating #curvy was banned earlier this month due to content which violated its community guidelines, but insisting the ban had nothing to do with the term “curvy” itself.

=> ↺ Censors Cut Fan Bingbing’s Intimate Horse Scene in ‘Lady of the Dynasty’

• In the scene, Lai’s character Tang dynasty Emperor Xuanzong tore off the clothes of Fan’s character Yang Guifei and the couple engaged in an intimate encounter. Netizens feasted on the screenshots of the movie trailer and some suggested the possibility of censoring the part for its “bad influence” on the youth.

=> ↺ How Beijing’s censorship impairs U.S.China relations

• Over the past two years, the Chinese authorities have taken new steps to block Chinese citizens’ access to information from U.S. companies and media. These actions not only limit Chinese citizens’ access to news and entertainment, but they also harm U.S. businesses, media outlets, and innovators. In effect, the Chinese Communist Party’s aggressive efforts to defend its political monopoly are costing the U.S. economy billions of dollars a year.

• These dynamics pose a challenge to smoother bilateral relations. They undermine trust, create obstacles to cooperation, and infuse business interactions with an underlying sense of unfairness. As such, they should be high on the agenda of any meeting between American and Chinese officials, be it the just concluded U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue or Xi Jinping’s upcoming U.S. visit in September.

=> ↺ How egalitarianism became a microaggression

• Now, to the ever-growing list of what’s racist we can add refusing to believe in the completely constructed and repulsive category of race in the first place. At the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), staff are being told that statements such as ‘I don’t believe in race’, ‘there is only one race, the human race’ and ‘America is a melting pot’ are no longer acceptable. In official UCLA guidelines uncovered by College Fix, all of these statements are branded ‘microaggressions’ – offhand comments or social slights which, the UCLA literature says, ‘communicate hostile, derogatory or negative messages’ to marginalised groups. That’s right: at this university, if you don’t believe in race, you’re probably a racist.

=> ↺ Non-religious groups criticise PM Lee’s remarks on “godless society”

• Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s remarks about how a “godless society” would bring “many other problems”, have raised the ire of some groups.

• “Overall, we think religion is a good thing,” Mr Lee said recently in an interview with TIME magazine. “I mean, if we were godless society, we would have many other problems, the communists found that out.”

• Mr Lee made those remarks when he spoke on the recent case of video-blogger Amos Yee whose online video on the late Lee Kuan Yew was also deemed to have “wounded the religious feelings of Christians.”

• “In our society, which is multiracial and multi-religious, giving offence to another religious or ethnic group, race, language or religion, is always a very serious matter. In this case, he’s a 16-year-old, so you have to deal with it appropriately because he’s (of a) young age,” Mr Lee said.

• The Prime Minister’s remarks about how a “godless society” would bring “many more problems”, however were criticised by at least two groups of non-religious groups.

• “Recent history shows that a state’s success or failure has more to do with its economic and political ideologies, governance, people and external factors beyond the state’s control than with religiosity,” said Leftwrite Center and the Humanist Society (Singapore) in a letter to TODAY.

=> ↺ PAP shows desperation by drawing electoral lines

• Our supreme leader has shown signs of weakness by targeting the likes of Roy Ngerng and Amos Yee.

=> ↺ Legal assistance for online media more critical today

• With the recent announcements of the electoral boundaries and the impending general elections looming, it is a forgone conclusion that blog activity and online discussions will spike. In tandem with growing public perception that state owned media outlets are the government’s mouthpieces, the Internet is fast becoming the forum du jour for political debates and information dissemination.

=> ↺ Asia’s ‘Unruly’ Children

• Ostensibly, 16-year-old Amos Yee was charged with “wounding the religious feelings of Christians” in a YouTube video that lambasted Lee Kuan Yew and compared him to Jesus, whom the young blogger described as ‘power hungry and malicious’. Amos was also found guilty of posting obscene material on the Internet, reference to a crude illustration of Lee and former British premier Margaret Thatcher in an acrobatic sex maneuver.

=> ↺ Canada is no friend of free speech, and as citizens get fined for criticizing police and lawyers get prosecuted

• O Canada! The land of Mounties and beavers and hockey and…hate speech tribunals? Yes, it’s no secret that Canada is no friend of free speech, and as citizens get fined for criticizing police and lawyers get prosecuted for criticizing a government agency, things are only getting worse. Join James in today’s Thought for the Day to find out more.

=> ↺ Rapid Pirate Site Blocking Mechanism Introduced By Portugal

• In concert with rightsholders and Internet service providers, Portugal has just introduced a mechanism which enables the streamlined blocking of ‘pirate’ sites. Set to go into effect during mid-August, the system will target sites with more than 500 allegedly infringing links and those whose indexes contain more than 66% infringing content.

Privacy

=> ↺ Groups urge Obama to oppose cyberthreat sharing bills

• The coalition of 39 digital rights and privacy groups and 29 security experts urged Obama to threaten to veto the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA), a bill that may come to the Senate floor for a vote by early August. CISA would protect from customer lawsuits those businesses that share cyberthreat information.

• “CISA fails to protect users’ personal information,” the coalition said in a letter to Obama, sent Monday. “It allows vast amounts of personal data to be shared with the government, even that which is not necessary to identify or respond to a cybersecurity threat.”

=> ↺ Legislative Cyber Threats: CISA’s Not The Only One

• If anyone in the United States Senate had any doubts that the proposed Cyber Information Sharing Act (CISA) was universally hated by a range of civil society groups, a literal blizzard of faxes should’ve cleared up the issue by now.

=> ↺ New attack on Tor can deanonymize hidden services with surprising accuracy

• Deanonymization requires luck but nonetheless shows limits of Tor privacy.

=> ↺ Tor connection vulnerability uncloaks hidden web services

• MIT researchers have developed digital attacks which can unmask Tor services in the Deep Web with a high degree of accuracy.

=> ↺ How the way you type can shatter anonymity—even on Tor

• Security researchers have refined a long-theoretical profiling technique into a highly practical attack that poses a threat to Tor users and anyone else who wants to shield their identity online.

=> ↺ Internet of things: the greatest mass surveillance infrastructure ever?

• The word “thing”, in Old English, means a meeting or assembly. In the epic poem Beowulf, the eponymous hero declares he’ll “alone hold a thing” with the monster Grendel, who is terrorising the Danes in the great hall of Heorot. Beowulf uses “thing” euphemistically – it is a meeting that immediately descends into a fight.

• The Icelandic parliament is still called Althing (Alþingi). But over the ages, “things” have gradually evolved from meetings to matter. Today, we primarily use the term “thing” to refer to objects. Even in this sense, however, things are still core to our political and social lives.

• An appreciation that things have always been about community and politics, whether literally, or through the creation and respect of systems of private property, provides a useful backdrop to the recent book, Pax Technica: How the Internet of Things May Set Us Free or Lock Us Up, by writer and professor of communication, Philip N Howard.

=> ↺ France approves ‘Big Brother’ surveillance powers despite UN concern

• France’s highest authority on constitutional matters has approved a controversial bill that gives the state sweeping new powers to spy on citizens.

• The constitutional council made only minor tweaks to the legislation, which human rights and privacy campaigners, as well as the United Nations, have described as paving the way for “very intrusive” surveillance and state-approved eavesdropping and computer-hacking.

=> ↺ Incongruities in the News — Paul Craig Roberts

• Jonathan Pollard, a paid spy for Israel described by Michael D. Shear as “one of the country’s most notorious spies,” has been pardoned from his life sentence. It strikes me as hypocritical for the US government to sentence anyone to prison for spying when the government itself spies on everyone everywhere. All Americans including members of the House and Senate, congressional staff, military officers, foreign governments including the leaders of Washington’s closest allies, and foreign businesses are spied upon. No one is exempt from Washington’s spying.

• Washington claims that its worldwide spying does no harm. So how did the very limited spying of one person—Pollard—a civilian employee of Naval intelligence do so much harm as to warrant a life sentence? What some of us would like to see is a life sentence for NSA.

• What disturbs me about the case is that it is Pollard, who spied for a foreign country, who is released. In contrast, Manning and Snowden who spied for the American people are locked away, Manning in a federal prison and Snowden in his Russian exile. Julian Assange, who merely did his job as a journalist and made available to newspapers documents leaked to him, is confined to the Ecuadoran embassy in London.

=> ↺ EXCLUSIVE: Edward Snowden Explains Why Apple Should Continue To Fight the Government on Encryption

• As the Obama administration campaign to stop the commercialization of strong encryption heats up, National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden is firing back on behalf of the companies like Apple and Google that are finding themselves under attack.

• “Technologists and companies working to protect ordinary citizens should be applauded, not sued or prosecuted,” Snowden wrote in an email through his lawyer.

=> ↺ NSA Doesn’t Want Court That Found Phone Dragnet Illegal to Actually Do Anything About It

• The National Security Agency doesn’t think it’s relevant that its dragnet of American telephone data — information on who’s calling who, when, and for how long — was ruled illegal back in May.

• An American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit is asking the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, which reached that conclusion, to immediately enjoin the program.

• But the U.S. government responded on Monday evening, saying that Congressional passage of the USA Freedom Act trumped the earlier ruling. The Freedom Act ordered an end to the program — but with a six-month wind-down period.

=> ↺ Stepping into an NSA agent’s shoes is just a download away

=> ↺ Seen: Self-censoring font redacts words monitored by the NSA

=> ↺ Former NSA Leaker Thomas Drake Now Working in Retail

=> ↺ NSA Whistleblower Describes Ongoing Anguish

=> ↺ The Original NSA Whistleblower Is Still Rebuilding His Life

=> ↺ US spies on Japan trade talks: WikiLeaks

=> ↺ WikiLeaks reveals US spied on Japan too

=> ↺ WikiLeaks files suggest US spied on Japan, Japanese companies

=> ↺ Wikileaks says US spied on Japanese government, companies

=> ↺ WikiLeaks alleges widespread U.S. spying on Japanese government, major companies

=> ↺ Wikileaks: US ‘spied on Japan government and companies’

• The US has been spying on Japanese cabinet officials, banks and companies, including the Mitsubishi conglomerate, whistleblowing website Wikileaks says.

• Documents released by Wikileaks list 35 telephone numbers targeted for interception by the US National Security Agency (NSA).

• [...]

• Wikileaks says the NSA shared the information it had gathered with Australia, Canada, the UK and New Zealand – the so-called “Five Eyes” group.

=> ↺ WikiLeaks Docs Purport To Show The U.S. Spied On Japan’s Government

• New classified documents released by WikiLeaks purport to show that the United States spied on Japan’s government, as well as on Japanese banks and companies, including Mitsubishi.

=> ↺ US has spied on Japan for years, reveals Wikileaks

• WIKILEAKS published evidence of the United States spying on its ally Japan yesterday, including a list of government and business targets.

• The whistle-blowing website published its “Target Tokyo” list of 35 of US National Security Agency (NSA) targets — the Cabinet Office, the Bank of Japan and corporate giants Mitsubishi and Mitsui among them — going back at least eight years.

=> ↺ US Will Escape Consequences After NSA Caught Spying on Japanese Officials

• The US National Security Agency spied on Japanese high-profile officials and businessmen, WikiLeaks revealed on Friday.

=> ↺ Japan’s PM Could Use NSA Spy Reports to Strengthen Secret State – Envoy

• US China Policy Foundation Co-Chair and former Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Charles Freeman Jr. claims that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe could use the WikiLeaks revelations of US spying on his government to make security affairs far more secret.

=> ↺ US spied on Japanese govt, companies, passed intelligence to Australia, New Zealand

• Washington spied on its key ally, Japan, and passed intelligence on to Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the UK, WikiLeaks has revealed. The NSA targeted 35 high-ranking Japanese officials and top companies, and also tracked trade negotiations.

=> ↺ WikiLeaks Discloses NSA Intercepted Japan’s Secret Climate Change Plans

• The US National Security Agency (NSA) intercepted Japanese climate change plans of the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that had been intended to be kept secret from the United States, WikiLeaks revealed on Friday.

=> ↺ Leak Shows US Spying on Japan Over Climate Change — and Cherries

• One document that summarizes intercepted communications from 2007 discusses plans by the Japanese government to announce plans to halve their carbon emissions by 2050.

=> ↺ Climate and Cherry Disputes in WikiLeaks Documents Show U.S.-Japan Relations Can Be the Pits

• New U.S. spying records offer a view of the mundane diplomacy between two allied, industrialized nations. But five excerpted cables, released Friday by WikiLeaks, show relations aren’t always sunny or sweet.

=> ↺ US spied on Japanese PM Abe, Mitsubishi, and so much more

• The targets of the cyber-spying included stealing secrets on US-Japan relations, trade negotiations and climate change policy. Fruits of the spying, exposed in leaked documents published by WikiLeaks on Friday, were shared with the US’s Five Eyes spying partners.

=> ↺ Tokyo to Protest US Spying on Gov’t, Companies if Allegations Confirmed

• Tokyo will lodge a formal protest with the US government if the WikiLeaks revelations of NSA spying on Japanese officials and businesses are proved.

=> ↺ WikiLeaks: NSA spied on Abe and Japanese companies

• Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, key figures of his former administration and several of Japan’s most powerful companies have been the targets of long-term US spying operations, according to documents published on the WikiLeaks website.

=> ↺ Target Tokyo: WikiLeaks reveals NSA spied on Japanese PM Shinzō Abe and companies like Mitsubishi

• The US National Security Agency (NSA) undertook systematic mass surveillance of Japanese politicians, ministries and corporations over a number of years, according to recently published documents. The revelations come from whistleblowing organisation WikiLeaks, which released a list of 35 top secret targets in Japan on Friday morning (31 July).

=> ↺ Exclusive: US bugs Japan on trade and climate

• Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe and the top levels of the Japanese government are being spied on by America, and the information shared with allies including Australia, according to secret intelligence documents published by WikiLeaks.

=> ↺ NSA was spying on Japanese PM Shinzo Abe, WikiLeaks reveals

• WikiLeaks, the whistleblowing organisation recently revealed that the US National Security Agency (NSA) was actively spying on some of Japan’s high-profile citizens, including the current Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe.

=> ↺ WikiLeaks: NSA also targeted Japan, spied on climate change policy

• Add Japan to the list of countries that the National Security Agency purportedly spied on. New documents published by WikiLeaks alleges that the NSA kept tabs on Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, his cabinet and companies like Mitsubishi since 2006. In particular, the US paid close attention to Japan’s policies around climate change. That includes details about Abe’s plan to reduce the country’s carbon emissions by half by 2050, which Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) was considering not telling the US about, as well as its confidential G8 summit proposals on climate change. Additionally, the US knew ahead of time that Japan intended to double down on a “sectoral approach” for managing carbon emissions, which focuses on specific carbon goals for sectors like “industry,” “residential” and “transportation.”

=> ↺ New leaks show NSA targeting Japanese ministers and energy companies

• The NSA has been keeping a close eye on Japan’s biggest businesses, according to a new publication from Wikileaks. Dubbed “Target Tokyo,” the new files show NSA selector IDs singling out a range of sensitive targets within Japan, including the country’s Minister of Economic Trade and Industry, numerous targets within the country’s finance ministry, and unspecified targets within Mistubishi’s Natural Gas division and Mitsui’s petroleum division.

• The latest release is similar to previous documents that revealed French government targets as well as the personal surveillance of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The source of the documents is unknown, but they are not believed to have come from Edward Snowden, who has traditionally published documents through journalistic outlets like The Guardian, The Intercept, or The Washington Post.

=> ↺ Target Tokyo

• Today, Friday 31 July 2015, 9am CEST, WikiLeaks publishes “Target Tokyo”, 35 Top Secret NSA targets in Japan including the Japanese cabinet and Japanese companies such as Mitsubishi, together with intercepts relating to US-Japan relations, trade negotiations and sensitive climate change strategy.

• The list indicates that NSA spying on Japanese conglomerates, government officials, ministries and senior advisers extends back at least as far as the first administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, which lasted from September 2006 until September 2007. The telephone interception target list includes the switchboard for the Japanese Cabinet Office; the executive secretary to the Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga; a line described as “Government VIP Line”; numerous officials within the Japanese Central Bank, including Governor Haruhiko Kuroda; the home phone number of at least one Central Bank official; numerous numbers within the Japanese Finance Ministry; the Japanese Minister for Economy, Trade and Industry Yoichi Miyazawa; the Natural Gas Division of Mitsubishi; and the Petroleum Division of Mitsui.

=> ↺ EXCLUSIVE: Now it’s Edward Snowden the comic book – man who stole 1.7 MILLION classified documents and revealed NSA’s monitoring program is subject of ‘graphic novel’

=> ↺ NSA report shows China hacked 600+ US targets over 5 years

• NBC has released a 2014 slide from a secret NSA Threat Operations Center (NTOC) briefing—a map that shows the locations of “every single successful computer intrusion” by Chinese state-sponsored hackers over a five-year period. More than 600 US businesses and institutions were breached during that period.

=> ↺ Exclusive: Secret NSA Map Shows China Cyber Attacks on U.S. Targets

=> ↺ How NSA and GCHQ spied on the Cold War world

• American and British intelligence used a secret relationship with the founder of a Swiss encryption company to help them spy during the Cold War, newly released documents analysed by the BBC reveal.

=> ↺ NSA pays highway cops $1mn to patrol data centres

=> ↺ Local troopers maintain ‘perimeter presence’ at data center as part of contract with NSA

=> ↺ Report: Utah Cops Get $1M a Year to Park at NSA Data Center

• The massive controversial NSA data center in Bluffdale, Utah, has police presence that’s costing the agency $1 million a year. State Highway Patrol troopers provide the facility that became a center of attention following Edward Snowden’s disclosures about the agency’s mass surveillance practices with a “perimeter presence” under contract with the feds, reported a local Fox News affiliate.

• In a statement, the NSA (National Security Agency) said the move was to ensure the security of its workforce and the larger community. Public outrage following the Snowden disclosures included protests at the site, putting the secretive facility in the national spotlight.

=> ↺ No pardon for NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, says US government

• A petition calling for American intelligence whistleblower Edward Snowden to be pardoned has been rejected by the US government – two years after it was started.

• More than 167,000 people signed the petition – calling for Mr Snowden to be “immediately issued with a full, free, and absolute pardon” – on the government’s official petitions website, We the People.

• But the US government said it would not be acting on it and instead urged Mr Snowden to return to America and be “judged by a jury of his peers”.

=> ↺ White House says Snowden should ‘come home, be judged’

• The White House rejected a call today to pardon Edward Snowden, saying the former intelligence contractor should “be judged by a jury of his peers” for leaking US government secrets. The US administration re-iterated its tough stance against the exiled fugitive, whom supporters regard as a whistleblower, in response to a petition on the White House website signed by more than 167,000 people.

• Lisa Monaco, an advisor on homeland security and counterterrorism, said Snowden’s “dangerous decision to steal and disclose classified information had severe consequences for the security of our country and the people who work day in and day out to protect it.” She said that Snowden, who has been granted asylum in Russia after he leaked documents on vast US surveillance programs to journalists, is “running away from the consequences of his actions.”

=> ↺ Quoted: White House says no pardon for Edward Snowden

• The administration response is in line with other government officials’ stated stance on Snowden, who a couple of years ago leaked documents he stole from the NSA. Although former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said earlier this month he thought that a deal was possible, a spokeswoman for current U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said the administration’s position had not changed.

=> ↺ White House Says “Thanks but No Thanks” to Pardon for Snowden

=> ↺ Spies helped build Silicon Valley. Now the tables are turning

• David Cameron wants US tech sector companies to do more to fight terrorism. But they’ve grown too powerful to listen

=> ↺ Tor Project, Library Freedom Project to establish Tor exit nodes in libraries

• Tor Project and the Library Freedom Project have joined forces to establish Tor exit nodes in libraries in an effort to protect internet freedom, bolster the Tor network and show the public how Tor can be used to protect their digital free expression rights, according to a Tor Project blog post.

=> ↺ The NSA will soon stop examining millions of Americans’ calling records

=> ↺ NSA won’t get hands on bulk phone data after 29 November

=> ↺ NSA will stop looking at old phone records

• The agency says that would be “solely for data integrity purposes to verify the records produced under the new targeted production authorized by the USA FREEDOM Act”.

• The National Security Agency will purge all phone data collected during the operation of its expiring bulk surveillance program by the start of next year pending ongoing litigation, the government announced Monday. Instead, those metadata records – such as the time a call was made, to whom it was made, and the duration of the call – will held by the telephone companies, and the NSA will be required to submit specific search terms in order to request relevant data, after obtaining a warrant from the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

=> ↺ NSA sets date for purge of surveillance phone records

• “Analytic access” to the five years worth of records will end on 29 November, and they’ll be destroyed three months later, it said in a statement released on Monday.

=> ↺ Why the NSA is destroying its historic telephone surveillance data

• Since Edward Snowden’s revelations in 2013, the National Security Agency, or NSA, has become a by-word for uncontrolled government surveillance, an Orwellian presence collecting information without remit or restriction.

=> ↺ NSA to destroy bulk phone records collected under Patriot Act

=> ↺ Chat about Safe Harbour all you like, the NSA’s still the stumbling block

• The EU’s Justice Commissioner met her US counterparts last week in an effort to break the stalemate over data protection rights.

• Věra Jourová and US Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker met to discuss the revision of the so-called Safe Harbour agreement, a legally enforceable but voluntary code of conduct for US businesses that process European citizens’ data.

• The bilateral deal was reached in 2000 as a way to allow data flows across the North Atlantic, even though the US does not meet the EU’s adequacy standards on data protection.

=> ↺ CISA: The Dirty Deal Between Google and the NSA That No One Is Talking About

• One of the things that civil liberties activists like to lament about is that the general public seems to care more about Google and Facebook using their personal data to target advertising than the government using it to target drone strikes.

=> ↺ Pending bill could give NSA carte blanche on personal data

• Ever heard of the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act? Not many people have, but the bill, which is progressing through the legislative process, could give government agencies access to huge amounts of personal data held by private companies like Google and Facebook.

=> ↺ What’s Inside the Justice Department’s Secret Cybersecurity Memo?

• Wyden, the Democratic privacy hawk from Oregon, claims that a classified Justice Department legal opinion written during the early years of the George W. Bush administration is pertinent to the upper chamber’s consideration of cyberlegislation—a warning that reminds close observers of his allusions to the National Security Agency’s surveillance powers years before they were exposed publicly by Edward Snowden.

=> ↺ Wyden, Internet privacy guru, pushes back on cyber, intel bills

• Ron Wyden, happy warrior, is at it again.

• The Oregon Democrat is throwing sand in the gears of legislation designed to fight hackers and terrorists over concerns that the bills will limit users’ privacy and free speech.

• With just days left before the August recess, Sen. Wyden is helping to lead a grassroots campaign against the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA). The bipartisan bill encourages private companies to share information with the government about cyber threats after a number of high-profile hacks of federal agencies and firms like Sony, Target and Anthem.

=> ↺ Magid: Concerns raised about cybersecurity bill

• The Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act , or CISA, encourages private companies to share information with the federal government and local law enforcement. The bill, according to its co-author, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-San Francisco, would remove legal barriers for companies to share, receive and use cyberthreat information and cyber countermeasures “on a purely voluntary basis,” while also providing liability protection if user or customer data is shared.

=> ↺ Cyber-Surveillance Bill Set to Move to Senate Floor

• The Senate is expected to consider the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA, S. 754) on the Senate floor soon. The bill was marked up in secret, thereby denying the public an opportunity to better understand the risks the legislation poses. This document analyzes the bill as reported by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on a vote of 14-1.

=> ↺ Week of Action Opposing CISA: Over 400,000 Faxes Sent At Halfway Point

• We’re halfway through our Week of Action opposing the privacy-invasive “cybersecurity” bill CISA. This is the fifth time in as many years that Congress is trying to pass an information-sharing bill. The Week of Action aims to stop a rumored vote on the bill before Congress leaves for a 5-week vacation on August 7. We’re only three days in and over 400,000 faxes have been sent to the Senate opposing CISA. Join us now in the Week of Action.

=> ↺ Stop Cyber Surveillance

=> ↺ Privacy groups use faxes to fight cyber surveillance bill

• A coalition of privacy rights advocates and civil-liberties groups opposed to the proposed Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, or CISA, is urging American citizens to wage a fax campaign against it – on the theory that if the government wants to impose Orwellian 1984-style surveillance laws on America, maybe circa-1984 technology is the best way to point out the problems with this.

=> ↺ Court: German spy agency need not give info on NSA list

• A German federal court has ruled that the country’s spy agency is under no obligation to divulge to the media a list of names compiled from search terms provided to it by the U.S. National Security Agency.

=> ↺ Bundestag Demands Access to Surveillance Lists Involved in NSA Scandal

• The G10 Commission of the Bundestag responsible for controlling German intelligence services is going to file a lawsuit against the current German government over a recent espionage scandal with the NSA. The Commission demanded access to BND documents containing lists of objects of surveillance, chairman of the Commission Andre Hahn told Sputnik.

=> ↺ German Intelligence Supervisor to Sue Merkel Amid NSA Scandal

=> ↺ German Courts Unlikely to Rule Against Gov’t in NSA Scandal

=> ↺ Even the former head of NSA thinks crypto backdoors are stupid

• Michael Chertoff, the former head of the Department of Homeland Security and a former federal prosecutor, made some surprising remarks last week, coming out strongly against cryptographic backdoors that could be provided to the government upon request.

=> ↺ Former Heads of Homeland Security, NSA Back Encryption

• Three prominent former national-security officials endorsed the use of encryption in communications, breaking with President Barack Obama and Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey in their standoff with Silicon Valley over new uses of the controversial technology.

• Former National Security Agency Director Mike McConnell, former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and former Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn backed encryption in an eyebrow-raising editorial published Wednesday in the Washington Post.

=> ↺ The Red Herring of Digital Backdoors and Key Escrow Encryption

• This subtle misdirection shifts the conversation away from a different sort of back door currently being leveraged on a global scale. That would be back doors that are built upon zero-day exploits. An entire industry has emerged to cater to the growing demand for zero-day bugs and the tech monoliths have quietly provided assistance. For example it’s well documented that companies like Microsoft gave the NSA early access to information on zero-day bugs in their products.

=> ↺ An Unexpected Voice Speaks Out Against Backdoored Encryption

• Chertoff said weakening encryption would increase the vulnerabilities for ordinary users, force “bad people” into using technology that would be even harder to decrypt, and could become a strategic vulnerability for the United States, especially if Russia and China demanded backdoor access.

=> ↺ Even former heads of NSA, DHS think crypto backdoors are stupid

=> ↺ Swiss cryptography firm helped NSA during Cold War

• According to an analysis of declassified documents by the BBC, Zug-based company Crypto AG helped the US National Security Agency (NSA) during the Cold War. The firm told swissinfo.ch that it was unaware of this secret collaboration until recently.

=> ↺ Law Enforcement Agencies NSA’s ‘New Customer’ for Data – Whistleblower

• NSA whistleblower William Binney claims that the most prominent users of data collected by NSA are federal and international law enforcement agencies.

=> ↺ Ex-Qwest CEO: Likely the NSA snatched emails, calls during Salt Lake Olympics

• Joseph Nacchio headed Denver-based Qwest from 1997 to 2002 and later served more than four years in prison on insider-trading convictions involving the telecom giant. He said Wednesday that he couldn’t say whether the company worked with the NSA or FBI to capture such information during the Olympics, but that the agencies could have worked with other executives to gain access without his knowledge.

=> ↺ NSA Phone Dragnet Will Be Emptied, Feds Say, If Foes Allow It

• The U.S. government says it wants to empty the National Security Agency’s databases of domestic call records that were collected in bulk, but that it can’t because surveillance foes seeking a courtroom win for privacy rights have forced their retention.

=> ↺ NSA won’t look at call metadata collected under the Patriot Act

=> ↺ Rogers: NSA, Cybercom Need Partners to Aid Cybersecurity

=> ↺ UK Police Want to Secretly Arrest Journalists Who Report on Snowden’s NSA Leaks

• Metropolitan Police claim an investigation into the possibility of prosecuting journalists for their role in publishing secrets leaked by Edward Snowden will be kept secret. The revelation that information won’t be disclosed due to a “possibility of increased threat of terrorist activity” follows the relentless demands for information from journalists at The Intercept

=> ↺ Why Some Americans hate Edward Snowden

• It is difficult to feel “exceptional” when we tolerate living in a “democracy” whose government spies on just about everything it can under the pretense of making us “safe” and “free”.

=> ↺ Exit Interview: I’m A Crypto-Specialist Working To Secure the Internet For A Billion People

• We spoke with Karsten Nohl, a Berlin-based crypto-specialist, to get a better handle on these issues. Karsten views himself as an ethical hacker who exposes the security flaws of large corporations, including GSM mobile phone carriers and credit card companies, in order to better protect the customers.

• And his research is fascinating. From developing USB “condoms,” to working to help over a billion people in India connect to the internet securely, Karsten is something of a renegade, trying to make the online world a bit safer for us all.

=> ↺ US Given Low Grades on Privacy, Surveillance from UN Committee

• Not surprisingly, the United Nations Human Rights Committee gave the United States low scores on privacy and national security surveillance. In particular, the committee concluded the US has failed to establish “meaningful judicial oversight of its surveillance operations, adequate limits on data retention and meaningful access to remedies for privacy violations.”

=> ↺ Dig out your old mobile phone and hack an air-gapped computer

• Researchers at Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheba, Israel have discovered a new attack in which data, including passwords and encryption keys, could be stolen from a computer isolated from the web by using an old phone, malware, a GSM network and electromagnetic waves.

=> ↺ NSA Tries to Blame Privacy Advocates for Keeping Americans’ Telephone Records

• USA Freedom requires the NSA to stop collecting our telephone records. An open question when the law passed was what should happen to the mountain of records the NSA has already collected. Will the records be destroyed? Will the NSA keep them? Will it be able to keep using them?

• Earlier this week, the NSA announced that it was going to move the stored records out of active use in November, with a three month period when its employees check them for “data integrity” reasons. It noted, however, that it would not be destroying the records until resolution of the various court cases where the government is under a court order to preserve evidence. Three of those cases are EFF’s: Jewel v. NSA, First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles v. NSA and Smith v. Obama. The implication is that the privacy advocates are the reason that these records aren’t being destroyed.

• Not so.

• We have offered to the NSA, in multiple court filings, to enter into a plan under which they can destroy many of the records (maybe not all, but certainly most of them). The NSA just needs to admit that our clients’ telephone records were included in the mass collection and for how long. Alternatively, they could state on the record that none of our clients’ records were ever included in the NSA’s telephone records collection, something that seems inconceivable (we do know what that word means) given that Jewel v. NSA is a class action on behalf of all telephone customers of AT&T.

=> ↺ Michael Moore Reveals Stealth NSA Project ‘Where to Invade Next’ on Periscope

• One of the big surprises among the world premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival this September is Michael Moore’s first documentary in six years, “Where To Invade Next.” The usually expansive filmmaker and social media master has kept the project under wraps for a year, he declared on his first Periscope live video via Twitter. (As of Tuesday there was no IMDb listing.)

• “I’d like to say hello to my NSA friends who are watching right now,” Moore said. Clearly, he feels a certain paranoia about his subject, much as Laura Poitras did with “Citizenfour.”

Civil Rights

=> ↺ Why We Can’t Support Police Unions

• A labor movement that seeks to fight oppression has no room for police unions.

=> ↺ Openly gay CIA contractor faked family emergency to leave Afghanistan amid alleged LGBT discrimination by colleagues

• An openly gay CIA contractor feared that his own colleagues posed a graver threat to his safety than the enemy forces he encountered during a recent deployment in Afghanistan.

• Brett Jones ultimately faked a family emergency to escape the troubling pattern of escalating harassment he said he endured on the mission.

=> ↺ Former Navy Seal says CIA operatives turned on him because he is gay

• Brett Jones, a former Navy Seal and an openly gay member of the CIA’s paramilitary Global Response Staff (GRS), told ABC News that other staff members harassed him so much that he feared for his life.

=> ↺ WATCH: CIA Contractor Details Antigay Harassment by Colleagues in War Zone

• When former Navy SEAL and current CIA contractor Brett Jones came out as gay last year, he received widespread support from his colleagues. But his latest experience, while deployed in a war zone in Afghanistan, has been a different story.

=> ↺ Ex-US navy member alleges anti-gay bullying by CIA workers

=> ↺ High-speed police chases have killed thousands of innocent bystanders

• More than 5,000 bystanders and passengers have been killed in police car chases since 1979, and tens of thousands more were injured as officers repeatedly pursued drivers at high speeds and in hazardous conditions, often for minor infractions, a USA TODAY analysis shows.

• The bystanders and the passengers in chased cars account for nearly half of all people killed in police pursuits from 1979 through 2013, USA TODAY found. Most bystanders were killed in their own cars by a fleeing driver.

• Police across the USA chase tens of thousands of people each year — usually for traffic violations or misdemeanors — often causing drivers to speed away recklessly. Recent cases show the danger of the longstanding police practice of chasing minor offenders.

=> ↺ Feds Hand Out Funds To Be Used For ‘Traffic Safety;’ Local Agencies Buy License Plate Readers Instead

• The National Highway Transportation Safety Association (NHTSA) is supposed to be focused on one thing: safety. For crying out loud, it’s right in the middle of its cumbersome name. But the federal funding it hands out to state and local governments is being used for surveillance devices with no discernible “safety” purpose: automatic license plate readers.

=> ↺ Freedom Of The Press Foundation Sues DOJ Over Its Secret Rules For Spying On Journalists

• The wonderful Freedom of the Press Foundation is now suing the US Justice Department for refusing to reveal its rules and procedures for spying on journalists. You can read the complaint here. The key issue: what rules and oversight exist for the DOJ when it comes to spying on journalists. As you may recall, a few years ago, it came out that the DOJ had been using some fairly sneaky tricks to spy on journalists, including falsely telling a court that reporter James Rosen was a “co-conspirator” in order to get access to his emails and phone records. In response to a lot of criticism, the DOJ agreed to “revise” its rules for when it snoops on journalists.

Internet/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ ISPs: Net neutrality rules are illegal because Internet access uses computers

• Internet service providers yesterday filed a 95-page brief outlining their case that the Federal Communications Commission’s new net neutrality rules should be overturned.

• One of the central arguments is that the FCC cannot impose common carrier rules on Internet access because it can’t be defined as a “telecommunications” service under Title II of the Communications Act. The ISPs argued that Internet access must be treated as a more lightly regulated “information service” because it involves “computer processing.”

• “No matter how many computer-mediated features the FCC may sweep under the rug, the inescapable core of Internet access is a service that uses computer processing to enable consumers to ‘retrieve files from the World Wide Web, and browse their contents’ and, thus, ‘offers the ‘capability for… acquiring,… retrieving [and] utilizing… information.’ Under the straightforward statutory definition, an ‘offering’ of that ‘capability’ is an information service,” the ISPs wrote.

Intellectual Monopolies

Copyrights

=> ↺ Kim Dotcom & Mega Trade Barbs Over Hostile Takeover Claims

• In a Q&A session with users of Slashdot this week, Kim Dotcom advised surprised readers not use Mega amid claims of a hostile takeover. Intrigued, TorrentFreak caught up with both Dotcom and his former colleagues at the cloud storage site. Both had plenty to say and it’s now clear that previously warm relations have now iced over.

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