This page permanently redirects to gemini://gemini.techrights.org/2016/01/20/github-under-fire/.

● 01.20.16

● Links 20/1/2016: Brave Software’s New Browser, GitHub Under Fire

Posted in News Roundup at 6:05 pm by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

=> ↺ Running desktop Linux on a tablet: A lid for every pot

• Android pretty much own the smartphone market with over 82% market share. Chrome OS is also making a serious dent in the PC market. Despite the dominance of these two Linux based distributions there are many users, including my friend Bryan Lunduke, who want to run ‘regular Linux desktops’ on tablets.

• Since the Linux community doesn’t know the meaning of the word “impossible,” I started looking around to see if someone had solved this particular problem.

=> ↺ Best Linux distros of 2016: Something for everyone

• The beauty of Linux is that there really is something for everyone. Amazon, Facebook, and Google run their massive infrastructure on Linux. Companies like Samsung use it in their TVs, smartphones, and smart watches. And then there are ordinary users like you and me who use computers to do work.

• In this slideshow for 2016 I have picked distros that excel in certain areas. We will see how many of these distros remain on the list in 2017.

Desktop

=> ↺ German City That Replaced Windows with Linux to Ditch Last Windows XP/2000 PCs

• Munich is a pioneer of the transition from Windows to Linux, as the city invested millions of euros in giving up on Microsoft software and embracing the open-source alternative, and it’s now ready to finally ditch the very last PCs still running Windows.

Server

=> ↺ Yelp Releases an Initialization System for Docker Containers

• Simple, clean, easy to install. Sounds elegant. Best of all, you can check it out for yourself. Yelp gave dumb-init its own page on GetHub. Dumb-init is one of a number of internally-build tools that the social recommendation service has released as open source.

Kernel Space

=> ↺ New x86 Platform Drivers Land In Linux 4.5, Including Telemetry For Apollo Lake

• Coming with Linux 4.5 is an eventful x86 platform drivers update.

• The x86 platform driver updates landed today in Linux Git and include a new Intel Telemetry platform device and driver, an Intel Telemetry core driver, an Intel P-Unit Mailbox IPC driver, a new Intel HID event driver for hot keys, and updates to the existing drivers.

=> ↺ Intel Kabylake Will Still Require Firmware Blobs

• Beginning with Skylake and Broxton hardware, Intel began requiring firmware blobs as part of their open-source graphics driver stack. This binary firmware is continuing forward with the next-generation Kabylake processors.

• With the in-development Linux 4.5 kernel there is the initial Kabylake support, but that support will be further polished over the next few kernel cycles. Published today was the GuC loading support for Kabylake, The GuC engine is for workload scheduling on parallel graphics engines and is what necessitated the firmware introduction with Skylake and Broxton. So it’s not entirely a surprise that there’s going to be firmware blobs for Kabylake, it would have been more surprising if they would have dropped it after just one generation.

Graphics Stack

=> ↺ OpenGL Performance & Performance-Per-Watt For NVIDIA GPUs From The Past 10 Years

=> ↺ DnD Actions Land Within Wayland’s Weston, Already Being Used In GTK+

• Just a few days ago the Wayland Drag-n-Drop actions support patches were published and they’ve now already ended up within the Weston repository.

• There is now DnD actions and DnD progress notification within Weston.

=> ↺ The State of Compute Shaders For Gallium3D Drivers

=> ↺ AMDGPU Semaphores Support Getting Squared Away

=> ↺ 63 Mesa Patches For Wiring Up One OpenGL 4.3 Extension

• Sixty-three patches were published on the Mesa mailing list this morning for wiring up the ARB_internalformat_query2 extension as needed by OpenGL 4.3.

• Consulting firm Igalia has been working on the ARB_internalformat_query2 support for the Intel i965 DRI driver. These 63 patches posted today under a “request for comments” state implement the support for core Mesa and the Intel i965 back-end.

Applications

=> ↺ MAC address scrambling coming to Linux

• And it looks like the IEEE-recommended randomization of MAC addresses is going to come to the Fedora distribution of Linux.

• Fedora contributor and NetworkManager developer Lubomir Rintel writes on his blog that the problem is that our laptops and mobile phones’ MAC addresses are, in most cases, broadcasting wherever we go, before we even attempt a connection to a wireless network.

=> ↺ NetworkManager 1.1.90 Brings WiFi Powersave, Random MAC Addresses & More

=> ↺ NetworkManager 1.2 Enters Beta, Promises Tracking Protection in Wi-Fi Networks

• After informing the Linux world about the most important feature that would land in the upcoming NetworkManager 1.2 network connection manager software, today Lubomir Rintel has released the first development build, NetworkManager 1.1.90.

=> ↺ GParted 0.25.0 Released With Progress Bar When Checking/Resizing ext2/3/4 Partitions

• GParted is an open source and free partition manager. GParted can create and edit partitions. It’s a GUI (Graphical User Interface) so it’s easy to to create or edit partitions on our hard disk using GParted. GParted recently released its 0.25.0 version that now shows a progress bar when checking or resizing ext2/3/4 partitions. Here is how you can install or update to GParted 0.25.0 in Ubuntu or other derivatives distros.

=> ↺ Rygel 0.29.1 Open Source Media Server Adds Support for Lightweight Media Scanner

• Rygel developer Jens Georg announced on the GNOME mailing list the immediate availability for download and testing of the first milestone in the upcoming Rygel 0.30 stable series of the open-source media server software.

=> ↺ git-annex v6

• Version 6 of git-annex, released last week, adds a major new feature; support for unlocked large files that can be edited as usual and committed using regular git commands.

=> ↺ Oracle Releases VirtualBox 5.0.14 with Support for Linux Kernel 4.5, Mac OS X Fixes

• Oracle today announced the release of the VirtualBox 5.0.14 open-source and cross-platform virtualization software for all supported operating systems, including GNU/Linux, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows.

Proprietary

=> ↺ Latest Vivaldi Web Browser Snapshot Adds over 50 Bugfixes and Improvements

• The Vivaldi developers are back at work bringing us more Snapshot builds towards the final and first-ever stable release of the cross-platform and proprietary web browser for GNU/Linux, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows operating systems.

=> ↺ Opera 34 for Linux Needs a Little Wizardry to Make Netflix Finally Work

• A fresh Opera stable update has been released, but it’s a really small one. The developers have made some changes to get Netflix running, although they still haven’t made things easy.

• Opera is based on Chromium, and since Google Chrome has no problem with Netflix, the same doesn’t happen for Opera. This is an annoying problem for Opera users who really want to also watch Netflix, and the developers are aware of this. The latest update was released to fix this particular issue, but that hasn’t happened all the way through.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ Install ExpressionEngine on Debian 8

=> ↺ How to Install Flussonic Streaming Server Ubuntu / CentOS

=> ↺ How To Install Prometheus using Docker on Ubuntu 14.04

=> ↺ Raspberry Pi: Wall Mounted Calendar and Notification Center

=> ↺ Running Nulecules in Openshift via oc new-app

=> ↺ NullPointerExceptions in Xerces-J

=> ↺ Keep an eye on shares with shared code – part 1

=> ↺ List of bugzilla headers

=> ↺ What Is Fork Bomb And How Can You Prevent This Danger?

=> ↺ Essay on Haoop Part -I

=> ↺ unboxing in guile

Wine or Emulation

=> ↺ Wine 1.8 Released

• There are alternatives to using Wine, but they all involve trade-offs. Perhaps the simplest solution is to install Windows on your computer as a second operating system. But for many Linux users, that isn’t an option. We want to break free of Windows, not tie ourselves down to it.

Games

=> ↺ Steam Gets Controller Support for Non-Steam Games

• A new version of the Steam Beta client has been released, and it comes with fresh features and a few fixes for the Steam Controller.

• The Steam Beta client is the only version providing full support for the Steam Controller right now, so if you have one of these, it’s important to upgrade as soon as possible. Each new update for the client had some sort of improvements for the controller, so it looks like the developers are focusing a lot on this piece of hardware.

• Despite all of these upgrades for the Steam Controller, the gaming device is ready to be used right now. All the basic functions are present and working almost perfectly, but the Steam developers are working to extend the support for other games outside of the distribution platform.

=> ↺ A Linux Port Of Darkest Dungeon Is Planned

• Darkest Dungeon is a roguelike, dungeon crawler game that’s been in early access for the better part of a year while its full release is set for today.

• Coming out today is the full build for Windows and Mac OS X, but sadly not Linux. However, our former intern Eric Griffith pointed out that a Linux port is planned according to one of the developers in a comment he made last month.

=> ↺ Help get good looking FPS ‘Squad’ on Linux

• A developer of Squad mentioned again that they want to do a Linux version, but it’s not a priority. The developer asked people to comment on his reddit post in they want Linux support.

=> ↺ That Dragon, Cancer is now doing a Linux release on Steam

• I spoke to the developer of That Dragon, Cancer and they have now confirmed they are actually able to put the Linux version up on Steam.

• The developer sent this blog post to us directly on twitter, and we had a little chat after about it. I would show you it, but twitter is down again.

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

=> ↺ KDEPIM Akregator Faster than Ever

• Today in Linux news, Laurent Montel posted of new Akregator plans since version 2 was scrapped. Elsewhere, Matt Hartley discussed what he misses from Windows while Michael Sexton reported that Microsoft will limit processor updates to Windows 10 – pushing more users to Linux. Arch ended up winning that FOSS Force Distro of Year poll and Jesse Smith reviewed Kwort 4.3 in today’s Distrowatch Weekly.

=> ↺ Plasma tricks: smart places

• A tool that I really like in Dolphin is the resources panel: there you can pin folders like your home, desktop etc. And you can also pin things like “Applications”, “Tags”, “Activities”.

=> ↺ KDEPIM KDE and opensource

• Once upon a time a program named Akregator.

• It was born in 2004.

• But it didn’t evolute during 6-7 years. It was a bad thing for an kdepim application.

GNOME Desktop/GTK

=> ↺ NetworkManger and tracking protection in Wi-Fi networks

=> ↺ NetworkManager 1.2 Has Better Wi-Fi Scanning

• Almost since the beginning of time, NetworkManager kept an internal list of access points found in the last 3 scans. Since the background scan were triggered at least every two minutes, an access point could stay in the list for up to 6 minutes. This was a compromise between mobility, unreliable drivers, and an unreliable medium (eg, air). Even when you’re not moving the closest access point may not show up in every scan. So NetworkManager attempted to compensate by keeping access points around for a longer time.

=> ↺ Skizze progress and REPL

• Over the last 3 weeks, based on feedback we proceeded fledging out the concepts and the code behind Skizze.

=> ↺ EggStateMachine

=> ↺ EggAnimation

=> ↺ GTK+ 3.19.7 Brings Kinetic Scrolling For Wayland & More

• GNOME developers have released the latest development version of the GTK+ tool-kit in the approach towards GNOME 3.20.

• Today’s GTK+ 3.19.7 release makes use of the new Wayland DnD support that just landed today. In the Wayland scope GNOME 3.19.7 also adds support for kinetic scrolling. Details on the GTK+ kinetic scrolling can be found via this bug report.

Distributions

Reviews

=> ↺ Zorin OS 11 Beta Screenshot Tour – A Superb Windows Alternative

• A Beta version for Zorin OS 11 is now out, and it looks like the project is finally going in its own direction, even if we can spot a few Windows references in a couple of places.

=> ↺ group test: NAS distros

• What’s a terabyte to a data connoisseur? If you’re like us, you probably have more data than spare USB ports. While external drives are a great way to quickly and conveniently add extra storage, they have their drawbacks. For one, their data retrieval capabilities are restricted to the computer they are connected to. This might work for individual users with single PCs but isn’t a practical solution for a household with a variety of devices.

Arch Family

=> ↺ Solus and Manjaro Linux Receive Patch for the Zero-Day Linux Kernel Vulnerability

• The Manjaro community, through team leader Philip Müller, was happy to inform all users of the Manjaro Linux 15.12 (Capella) operating system that a patch is now available for the zero-day Linux kernel vulnerability reported earlier.

Ballnux/SUSE

=> ↺ openSUSE makes the Leap to the Public Cloud

• openSUSE Leap 42.1 is now available on Amazon EC2, Google Compute Engine, and Microsoft Azure. Leap has been available on EC2 & GCE since shortly after it release; the Azure release was delayed due to a qemu bug resulting in incorrectly formatted images. These images are maintained by SUSE’s Public Cloud Engineering Team. If you’d like to peek inside, they’re developed on Open Build Service (OBS), in the Cloud:Images project.

Red Hat Family

=> ↺ Red Hat plants containers as Jboss EAP 7 bursts into beta

• Red Hat has kicked open the beta program for its Jboss Enterprise Application Application Platform 7, and planted containers right at the heart.

• The vendor has deployed a panoply of keywords around the launch of the beta program, which it says will mirror enterprises movement “towards new application approaches that include containers, microservices architectures, and cloud environments”.

• At the same time it will bring “enterprise Java squarely into that new world and also provides a bridge to give customers what they need to build and deploy applications of the future and refresh traditional Java EE environment”.

=> ↺ Red Hat JBoss Data Virtualization lets users query multiple databases without merging data

=> ↺ Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7 Beta publicly available

=> ↺ BlackMesh’s Red Hat-based PaaS Cloud Offering Achieves FedRAMP Certification

=> ↺ $89.117 Price Target Assigned To Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE:RHT)

• Brokerage firms have assigned a short-term price target of $89.117 to Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE:RHT)’ stock. The average price recommendation represents the views of 17 analysts, which were surveyed by Zacks Research. The most bullish price estimate from the analysts sits at $97. Meanwhile, according to bearish estimates, the stock is expected to touch price target of $75. The sell-side analysts covering the stock have projected Red Hat, Inc.’s current quarter earnings per share estimates as $0.31. The forecast is provided by the Zacks Research, which may marginally vary from the estimates provided by the Thomson Reuters’ First Call estimates.

=> ↺ Montrusco Bolton Investments Raises Position in Red Hat Inc (RHT)

=> ↺ Key Stocks of the Day: Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE:RHT)

=> ↺ Black Duck and Red Hat Offer Container Security Solution

=> ↺ Microsoft-connected Black Duck

=> ↺ Red Hat and Black Duck team up to deliver a more secure container platform

=> ↺ Submissions Open for 2016 Red Hat Certified Professional of the Year Award

=> ↺ Red Hat Inc (NYSE:RHT) Shares Jump On $500 Million Buyback

• Red Hat Inc (NYSE:RHT) shares were trading heavily up in just after-market place trading on Wednesday immediately after the organization released its earnings numbers for the fourth quarter of 2014 this afternoon. The firm showed headline earnings of 26 cents per share, ahead of the 24 cents EPS recorded in the identical quarter of 2014. The company’s income hit $463.9 million for the three month period.

=> ↺ Independent Research Firm Names Red Hat a Leader Among Private Cloud Software Suites

• Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT), the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, today announced that it has been named a leader in two Forrester research reports ranking private cloud software suites and hybrid cloud management solutions. “The Forrester Wave™: Private Cloud Software Suites, Q1 2016” and “The Forrester Wave™: Hybrid Cloud Management Solutions, Q1 2016” reports assessed vendors in terms of their current offerings, market presence, and strategy, and Red Hat was placed as a leader in both reports.

=> ↺ Key Stocks of the Day: Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE:RHT)

=> ↺ Red Hat Announces the Beta of Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7

• The Red Hat JBoss Middleware Team at Red Hat, Inc. has proudly announced the release and general availability of the first Beta build of the upcoming Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7 software suite.

Fedora

=> ↺ CommOps – Year in Review

• 2015 was an important milestone for the Community Operations (CommOps) team in so many ways. CommOps is the newest official sub-project in Fedora, and the team’s role is to assist other sub-projects in Fedora. This is done by building and improving interactions within the internal Fedora community, as well as by increasing communication across the Project as a whole. In other words, CommOps is all about bringing more “heat and light” to the different areas of Fedora.

=> ↺ A visit to a Fedora datacenter

• I just got back from a visit to the largest of the datacenters used by Fedora Infrastructure, and I thought I would share a bit about why we do such visits what what we do on them.

Debian Family

Derivatives

=> ↺ Debian/TeX Live 2015.20160117-1 and biber 2.3-1

• About one month has passed and here is the usual updated of TeX Live packages for Debian, this time also with an update to biber to accompany the updated version of biblatex. Nothing spectacular here besides fixes for some broken links of fonts.

Canonical/Ubuntu

=> ↺ Canonical and BQ to Unveil the First Ubuntu Tablet That Runs X11 Apps at MWC 2016

• There you have it. Canonical promised this for a long time now, and it would appear that the London-based company behind the world’s most popular free operating system, Ubuntu Linux, will finally unveil the first ever, real Ubuntu tablet device this year, during the upcoming MWC (Mobile World Congress) 2016 event.

=> ↺ Canonical Patches the Zero-Day Linux Kernel Vulnerability in All Supported Ubuntu OSes

• We reported earlier today, January 19, 2016, that a new zero-day Linux kernel vulnerability has been discovered and it could give an attacker root access to the affected machine.

=> ↺ Microsoft About Platform Convergence and Continuum: I Made This

• Canonical is pretty close to deliver what they started to call convergence all the way back in 2013, although they had this idea internally for longer than that. They presented the Ubuntu phone in January 2013, at CES, and tried to raise funds for the Ubuntu Edge in July 2013. This is also when they officially proposed the Ubuntu convergence idea, although they didn’t use that term.

=> ↺ Ubuntu Phone Devs Begin Work on All the New Features for the OTA-10 Update

• We have just been informed by Łukasz Zemczak from Canonical about the latest work done by the Ubuntu Touch developers in preparation for the upcoming OTA-9 software update for all supported Ubuntu Phone devices.

• According to Mr. Zemczak, who was slightly injured on a hand during practice (we wish him get well soon), the testing of the soon-to-be-released Ubuntu Touch OTA-9 update continues, all week long, and the team of talented developers at Canonical will prepare the second re-spin of the Release Candidate (RC) image, which will include, as promised yesterday, the new Camera app.

=> ↺ Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) Is Getting Linux Kernel 4.4 LTS By the End of January

• The Ubuntu Kernel Team has just released a new installation of their weekly newsletter, informing all Ubuntu users about the latest work done in the maintenance of the kernel packages for the GNU/Linux operating system.

=> ↺ Snappy Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Will Let You Build Kernel Snaps via Snapcraft, Says Mark Shuttleworth

• The Ubuntu Kernel Team has just released a new installation of their weekly newsletter, informing all Ubuntu users about the latest work done in the maintenance of the kernel packages for the GNU/Linux operating system.

=> ↺ Ubuntu Unity 8 Convergence Desktop Mode

• The team over at Canonical have been hard at work on realizing the dream of “convergence” for several years now. While, to many, it seems like the promised convergence of phone, tablet, and desktop Ubuntu will never be realized, progress is being made (and more importantly, demonstrated) in new builds of Ubuntu for devices like the Nexus 4.

=> ↺ Ubuntu Linux tablet will turn into a makeshift desktop

• Want to use your mobile device as a desktop, but would rather not go the Windows route? BQ might have just what you’re looking for. The Spanish device maker is teasing the launch of an Ubuntu-based tablet that touts Convergence, a feature that turns your mobile Ubuntu gear into makeshift PCs. If you can scrounge up an external display, mouse and keyboard, you’ll have your own little Linux workstation.

=> ↺ Startup Promises Two Ubuntu-Powered Tablets For Preorder Starting At $350 Soon

• 2016 could be a big year for Ubuntu tablets, as the startup MJ Technology LLC has plans to release not one but two tablets running full versions of the operating system.

=> ↺ An Ubuntu Convergence Tablet Is Expected To Be Shown Off Next Month

• This isn’t a huge surprise as Canonical has participated in Mobile World Congress (MWC) the past few years and they’ve used it to showcase their mobile wares in the past. This tablet is said to be running a preliminary version of Ubuntu 16.04 “Xenial Xerus”, which isn’t much of a surprise either since it’s the current Ubuntu development cycle and will be a Long Term Support release.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ $65 hacker board runs 64-bit Linux on quad-core Atom

• The Linux- and Android-friendly “JaguarBoard” SBC, based on a 64-bit quad core Atom processor, has achieved 600 percent of its Kickstarter funding goal.

Phones

Tizen

=> ↺ What you need to know about Tizen 2.4 OS upgrade for Samsung Z1

• Tizen 2.4 Operating System (OS) for the Samsung Z1 has been in beta testing since the end of September 2015. Since then there has been a huge user demand for the Operating system to mature and flourish into a final release.

Android

=> ↺ With Remix OS, Run Android Apps on Your PC

• Remix OS is grabbing lots of headlines as a modified version of Android that can run on almost any PC. The OS “remixes” Android into a more traditional operating system, and has applications running in windows, a Start menu, a taskbar, and more. It’s available as a free download, and may especially appeal to people who have been speculating that Google might merge Android and Chrome OS.

=> ↺ Jide releases (some) Remix OS source code to comply with GPL, Apache licenses

=> ↺ Jide: Remix is Now GPL and Apache Compliant

=> ↺ Android on PC: Remix OS Allows Android Apps to Run on PC

=> ↺ 10 Best Emulators For Android 2016 — Run Android Apps On PC, PSP, N64

=> ↺ How I use Android: Writer and Android Power author JR Raphael

• After asking so many people to share how they use Android in their own lives, I figured it was only right to start the new year by stepping into the hot seat myself. Thus, this unusual “How I use Android” entry — one by and about the same silly schmo.

• So who the hell am I, other than the lowly scribe who pens this column for you to skim whilst clipping your toenails? I’m just an ordinary word-slinger who’s been lucky enough to cover Android since its start. I’ve reviewed more devices than I care to count and have written a frighteningly high number of features, guides, and other Android-related stories. I enjoy long lists, short words, and things that rhyme with “elephant.” I also have excellent dental hygiene.

=> ↺ WhisperPush – End of Life

• We’ve ultimately made the decision that we will no longer be supporting WhisperPush functionality directly within CyanogenMod. Further, WhisperPush services will be end-of-lifed beginning Feb 1st 2016. As this is a server side implementation, all branches of CM from CM10.2 and forward will be affected.

=> ↺ Is Android the Future of Feature Phones?

• The $270 Kyocera Dura XE for AT&T looks and works just like flip phones have done for 15 years or so. It flips open, has relatively fixed functions, and no app store. But under the hood there’s a strange amount of power for an easy-to-use flip phone: a Snapdragon 210 processor, 1GB of RAM…and Android.

=> ↺ OnePlus Recruits Beta Testers For Android 6.0-Based Hydrogen OS

• OnePlus has been founded in December 2013, and it 2014 they’ve released their first smartphone, the OnePlus One. That handset has been regarded as one of the bets smartphones in 2014, and OnePlus gained quite a bit of credibility. Now, the OnePlus One has shipped with Cyanogen OS out of the box, but along the way, OnePlus and Cyanogen decided to terminate their partnership, and OnePlus opted to develop their very own Android-based OS, read on.

=> ↺ From Android N to Self-Driving Cars: What to Expect at Google I/O

• Expect Google to make myriad product and technology announcements at its 2106 Google I/O developer conference, which it says will kick off May 18.

=> ↺ Here’s why you haven’t received Android Marshmallow yet

=> ↺ Android Pay rewards program ‘Tap 10′ allegedly spotted

=> ↺ Google Tests “Tap 10,” A Rewards Program For Android Pay Users

=> ↺ Xiaomi Mi4C Android update: latest news

=> ↺ Sony Xperia C4, Xperia C5 Ultra Now Receiving Android 5.1 Lollipop Update

=> ↺ LG G4 Android 6.0 Update Release Dates Emerge

=> ↺ Google is letting Android users install apps directly from search results

=> ↺ Report: Install Android Apps Directly From Google Search App

=> ↺ You Can Now Install Android Apps Directly From Google’s Search Results

=> ↺ Dutch consumer group sues Samsung over Android updates

=> ↺ Huawei Working On Hybrid MateBook Laptop That Can Run Windows And Android

=> ↺ Asus ZenFone 2 Receiving Firmware Update, Brings Android for Work Support

=> ↺ Moto G Turbo Edition Now Receiving Android 6.0 Marshmallow Update in India

=> ↺ Most Android devices running outdated versions

=> ↺ Android and the enterprise 2016 – old versions remain a big security risk

=> ↺ Motorola Moto G Turbo Edition getting Android 6.0 Marshmallow

=> ↺ Facebook’s Android app levels up privacy features with Tor support

=> ↺ How to get Android Marshmallow now: How to install Android 6.0.1 on Nexus devices

=> ↺ Remix OS Now Respects Both GPL and Apache Licenses

• Information about Remix OS and its apparent issue with GPL and Apache surfaced last week, but its developers have taken some steps to correct that issue.

Free Software/Open Source

=> ↺ What Freedom Really Means In Open Source

• As the popularity of open source continues to spiral, soar and skyrocket, more than one C-suite executive will have sat back and asked: just how does this open source thing work anyway? Important distinctions have already been widely drawn to explain that where open source is free, we mean ‘free as in speech’ not ‘free as in beer’.

• The Free Software Foundation has famously clarified this point and said that because of this distinction, we sometimes call it ‘libre software’ to show we do not mean it is gratis.

=> ↺ Going open can be a culture shock

• Several months ago, Red Hatters David Egts and Gunnar Hellekson welcomed Paul Smith, Red Hat Public Sector VP, onto their podcast, The Dave & Gunnar Show, where they discussed Smith’s experience in an open organization. The conversation is insightful—and we recommend tuning in.

=> ↺ 7 Truths that Open Source Struggles With

• Open source development has consistently proved many ideas that were once considered impossible. For instance, thanks to open source, we now know that people can be motivated by more than money, and that co-operation can be more effective in some aspects of development than competition.

• Personally, I get a lot of self-satisfied glee each time that open source undermines yet another “fact” that everyone knows.

• However, just because open source has consistently confounded common expectations does not mean that it is always right. There are at least seven assumptions that many in open source continue to believe, often in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary:

=> ↺ ETSI workshop brings together standards bodies, open source communities for ‘NFV Village’

• Last week’s ETSI’s Industry Specification Group for Network Functions Virtualization (ETSI NFV) convened in an industry workshop designed to align cloud-centric initiatives and network-centric initiatives to ensure successful realization of NFV through automation.

• The workshop brought together the leading standards development organizations and open source communities in an “NFV Village” hosted by CableLabs at its Louisville, Colo., location. Organizers say it was a significant and unique event because it was the first time the key standards bodies and open source communities representing a broad ecosystem have met together with a common purpose to accelerate alignment of their activities in relation to NFV.

=> ↺ 6 non-code contributions you can make to open source

• Contribute to open source! It’ll look great on your resume! It’s gratifying work!

• You may have heard people make these statements, or ones similar to them, numerous times throughout your career. They’re not wrong—contributing to open source is a rewarding endeavor in multiple dimensions—but, when software engineers advise other software engineers to contribute to open source they usually mean code contributions. This is a fair assumption to make, but the reality is that there are numerous opportunities to contribute to open source without writing a single line of code.

=> ↺ Snark attack: Cornell students teach software to detect sarcasm!

• A team of students participating in Cornell University’s Tech Challenge program has developed a machine learning application that attempts to break the final frontier in language processing—identifying sarcasm. This could change everything… maybe.

• TrueRatr, a collaboration between Cornell Tech and Bloomberg, is intended to screen out sarcasm in product reviews. But the technology has been open sourced (and posted to GitHub) so that others can modify it to deal with other types of text-based eye-rolling.

Events

=> ↺ Cory Doctorow on influencing the future instead of predicting it

• Cory Doctorow is good with words. He just prefers stringing them into sentences, not subroutines.

• “I was a software developer,” he says. “I’m much better at writing science fiction novels. Like, seriously.”

• When Doctorow takes the stage at the 14th annual Southern California Linux Expo (SCaLE 14x) this week, he’ll demonstrate exactly why he’s decided to ply his considerable talents to prose, not code. Doctorow’s talk, “No Matter Who’s Winning the War on General Purpose Computing, You’re Losing,” starts at 9 a.m. PST in the Pasadena Convention Center on Friday.

=> ↺ Linux conference season 2016 kicks off with SCaLE and FOSDEM

• Two-Thousand and Sixteen is well underway and the first major Linux conferences of the year are upon us!

• In fact, as I type this, I am washing my final load of laundry as I pack to fly down to the Southern California Linux Expo. SCaLE will take place January 21st through 24th in sunny Pasadena, California (side note: it is currently raining and cold where I’m at. Because I don’t live in Pasadena, California.).

• And I absolutely hate flying. Very little can get me to step foot within one of those frozen, metal tubes of death. But a good Linux festival can. And SCaLE is extraordinarily good. Thousands of Linux and Free Software nerds with four days of amazing sessions and some truly spectacular evening entertainment.

Web Browsers

Mozilla

=> ↺ New open-source ad-blocking web browser emerges from brain of ex-Mozilla boss Eich

• A new open-source browser that blocks ads and tracking code and so promises to “fix the Web” by offering a faster, privacy-respecting experience has been released.

• The Brave browser is the brainchild of former Mozilla (Firefox) CEO and JavaScript inventor Brendan Eich, and version 0.7 is now available to developers on GitHub.

• Brave is built on top of open-source browser Chromium – which Google uses as the foundation for its Chrome browser – and claims to be between 1.5 and 4 times faster than competitors by stripping out not just ads, but also all the tracking code that lives in abundance on most ad-supported websites.

=> ↺ Brave Software’s New Browser Nukes Ads That Track You

=> ↺ Brave browser promises faster Web by banishing intrusive ads

=> ↺ With Brave Software, JavaScript’s Creator Is Building A Browser For The Ad-Blocked Future

=> ↺ Mozilla cofounder Brendan Eich’s startup, Brave, launches browser for Mac, Windows, iOS, Android

=> ↺ Brave Internet Browser Blocks Regular Ads and Replaces Them with Its Own

=> ↺ Brave Browser By Brendan Eich’s Brave Software To Find Middle Ground Between Publishers And Ad Blockers

=> ↺ Brendan Eich Launches Brave New Browser

=> ↺ Ex-Mozilla CEO launches an ad-blocking browser that still shows you ads

=> ↺ Brave is the speedy browser that strips out web tracker and ads (for now)

=> ↺ Brave new browser blocks ads, inserts others

=> ↺ Mozilla cofounder’s new ‘Brave’ browser strips out ads that use your browsing history

=> ↺ Mozilla cofounder launches new web browser that replaces ads… with ads

=> ↺ Ex-Mozilla CEO Brendon Eich Launches Brave Browser

=> ↺ The former CEO of Mozilla is launching a web browser that blocks all ads by default

=> ↺ New Browser Offers ‘Brave’ Solution To Ad Blocking, Literally: Will Cut Users And Publishers In

SaaS/Big Data

=> ↺ Report Shows Hadoop on the Rise, But Demand for Spark is Most Notable

• Syncsort, which specializes in Big Data analytics and mainframe software, has announced the results from its second annual Hadoop survey. It shows that as more organizations are moving from Hadoop experimentation to production, realizing the full potential of big data analytics, there are a few top areas they will focus on in 2016.

=> ↺ Mirantis: Demand for Open Source OpenStack Cloud Training Surged in 2015

• How do you measure the number of companies that have adopted OpenStack for cloud computing? One metric is the popularity of OpenStack training courses, which surged in 2015, according to data out this week from Mirantis.

=> ↺ Mirantis and Others Steer Big Growth in OpenStack Cloud Training

• Mirantis, focused on the OpenStack cloud computing platform and ecosystem, expanded its OpenStack training efforts in big ways in 2015. According to the company, that included adding new courses, expanding to 15 new locations and training more than 5,000 students, doubling the total number of students the company has trained since 2012.

=> ↺ Entrepreneur and operator roles in OpenStack

=> ↺ Where open source is Influencing

GitHub Revolt

=> ↺ Open Source Devs Challenge GitHub on Support Issues

=> ↺ Frustrated developers from the Web’s biggest projects say GitHub isn’t listening

=> ↺ GitHub developers express anger at lack of support, bug fix issues

=> ↺ Disgruntled devs vent GitHub grievances — on GitHub

=> ↺ Frustrated developers sign GitHub protest letter

=> ↺ Devs complain GitHub’s become slow to fix bugs, is easily gamed

=> ↺ Famous Software Developers Tell GitHub to Get It Together

=> ↺ “Dear GitHub…” — An Open Letter to GitHub

=> ↺ Dear GitHub, More Than 1000 Famous Developers Are Mad At Your Issues Tracker

• Annoyed by GitHub’s outdated Issues Tracker feature, a CloudFlare developer has written an open letter to GitHub, suggesting the website to address the issues. Notably, the Issues Tracker feature is very rigid in nature and lacks the ability to pass a feedback on the service itself. At the moment, 1192 users have signed this open later.

Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

=> ↺ LibreOffice 5.1.0 to Integrate OpenGL and Coverity Fixes

• The Document Foundation has revealed the second Release Candidate for LibreOffice 5.1.0, the first major update for the 5.x branch of the famous office suite.

Pseudo-/Semi-Open Source (Openwashing)

=> ↺ When Enterprises Need to Transition from Free Open Source to Fully Supported OS Platforms

Funding

=> ↺ Open source developer JFrog invests in talent with $50M funding

• JFrog, a developer of open source software distribution tools, raised a $50 million round on Wednesday to invest in talent.

• Scale Venture Partners, Sapphire Ventures, Battery Ventures, Vintage Investment Partners and Qumra Capital participated in the round along with existing investors Gemini Israel Ventures and VMware. The company has raised $60.5 million to date.

=> ↺ JFrog Raises $50M For DevOps Expansion

=> ↺ JFrog, the GitHub of software artifacts, raises $50 million

=> ↺ JFrog Raises $50 Million To Provide The App Store For The Internet Of Things

=> ↺ Big Switch Networks Raises $48.5 Million in New Funding

• Software Defined Networking (SDN) vendor Big Switch Networks is announcing a new Series C round of funding, bringing in $48.5 million. Big Switch’s total funding to date stands at $94 million.

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

=> ↺ AMD HSA Support Merged Into GCC Trunk

• The AMD Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA) code has been mainlined within the GCC compiler!

• A few days ago the latest patches were published and today the work, which was done by SUSE under contract with AMD, is now in the mainline GCC code-base.

Licensing

=> ↺ Open Source Initiative approves Quebec licence

• The Open Source Initiative has approved the three open source licences written by the government of the Canadian province of Quebec. The Licence Libre du Québec (Québec Free and Open-Source Licence, LiliQ) should encourage the province’s public administrations to share their ICT solutions, establishing the government of Quebec as the licence authority.

Openness/Sharing

=> ↺ 100+ Makers eco-hack the future with open-source prototypes for a fossil-free, zero waste society

=> ↺ The open source city as the transnational democratic future

• Open source local government is the first step towards scaling up new public policy spheres and interwoven citizen practices that can make neoliberalism unnecessary.

=> ↺ How Thalmic Labs’ open source approach helped a man regain use of his arm

• When Thalmic Labs made the decision to go open source with its Myo arm band, it probably never imagined that doing so would lead to an amputee regaining the use of a limb.

• Thanks to the work of Johns Hopkins Medical School, Johnny Matheny has become the first person to attach a gesture-controlled limb directly to his skeleton, and it’s controlled with the Myo arm band. The delivery driver lost the lower part of his left arm to cancer in 2008. Late last year, Johns Hopkins designed a Modular Prosthetic Limb and used Myo’s electromyography (EMG) sensors to measure the electrical signals sent from Matheny’s upper arm to control his lower arm. Those signals are converted into Bluetooth transmissions to a controlling computer mounted on the prosthetic, which then determines the motion to be made with the limb.

Open Hardware

=> ↺ Open-source GPU could push computing power to the next level

• Binghamton University computer science assistant professor Timothy Miller, Aaron Carpenter and graduate student Philip Dexterm, along with co-author Jeff Bush, have developed Nyami, a synthesizable graphics processor unit (GPU) architectural model for general-purpose and graphics-specific workloads. This marks the first time a team has taken an open-source GPU design and run a series of experiments on it to see how different hardware and software configurations would affect the circuit’s performance.

=> ↺ Open-Source Arduino DIY Thermographic Camera From €450

• Developers and makers that are interested in making their very own open source Thermographic camera might be interested in a site called Thermocam that provides all the knowledge, instructions and components you need to do just that.

• The site also seems everything you need to make the camera from the Thermal sensor and board to the mini tripod that can be used to position the camera when finished.

• A fully working Thermographic Camera can be used for a variety of applications including finding heat leaks in the insulation of buildings, analysis of electrical or mechanical components and more. The project is Arduino compatible and the firmware is adaptable to your needs.

Programming

=> ↺ A minimalistic approach to debugging

• Carl Sagan once said, “We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.” Katrina Hayes is clearly an exception to that—she uses her knowledge and skills to great effect to debug code.

• Katrina took time from her busy schedule prior to her presentation, Logging in the debugger’s toolkit at the upcoming ScaLE 14X to talk to Opensource.com. She talks to us about her surprisingly minimal use of tools and a bit about her debugging process.

Leftovers

Science

=> ↺ Towards an understanding of technical debt

• The two most common solutions both often make the problem worse:

• 1. Declaring bankruptcy and rewriting from the ground up. 2. Papering over the issue with a layer of indirection/proxy/wrapper

• Rather if you are addressing a problem you understand and have correctly diagnosed you can put together a reasonable strategy for iterating and measuring your way to improvement. (and if you aren’t measuring when making changes you aren’t doing engineering, but that’s an essay for a different day)

• And finally you should especially worry if your team believes they’re “fixing” or “paying off” technical debt. All code is technical debt. All code is, to varying degrees, an incorrect bet on what the future will look like. You can address issues that are damaging to productivity, operability and morale, but only way to “fix technical debt” is “rm -rf”.

=> ↺ Italy’s ICT skills gap not closing, study shows

• In Italy, the gap between workers’ available ICT skills and required ICT skills shows no sign of closing, according to a study by Italian ICT and telecom trade groups. An inventory of available ICT skills shows that workers in public administrations are lagging far behind those in the commercial sector. In the latter, workers have attained some 71% of the required ICT skills, in public administrations this figure standst at just under 40%.

=> ↺ For The First Time In A Decade You Can See 5 Planets With Your Naked Eyes

• All the five bright planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn will get aligned for the first time in more than 10 years in the sky. It should be noted that four out of the five planets Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn have already been in the morning sky since the beginning of the year.

• The order of their appearance is Jupiter in the North followed by reddish Mars, followed by pale Saturn and lastly brilliant Venus, which shines above the eastern horizon. Looks like four of these stars are waiting for the Mercury to make the shining family look complete.

Health/Nutrition

=> ↺ Americans are “getting ripped off” on health care, Sanders exclaims in debate clash with Clinton

• Health care is one of the areas in which presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton differ the most. In the fourth Democratic debate in South Carolina on Sunday night, sparks flew as the candidates pushed for their conflicting views of U.S. health care policy.

• Sanders has called for Medicare-for-all. Before the debate, the Sanders campaign released a plan detailing what universal healthcare in the U.S. could look like.

• In recent days, the Clinton campaign has attacked Sanders for this policy, claiming that his proposals will decimate existing U.S. health care systems. Sanders says this is an unfair and even “nonsensical” distortion.

• “What her campaign was saying, Bernie Sanders — who has fought for universal health care for my entire life — he wants to end Medicare, end Medicaid, end the children’s health insurance program — that is nonsense,” the Vermont senator said.

Security

=> ↺ Don’t Panic About Recent Zero-Day Linux Kernel Vulnerability, It’s Not That Bad

• The kernel vulnerability that was revealed only yesterday got some users panicked, but the truth is that’s not really the case.

=> ↺ Tuesday’s security updates

=> ↺ Security advisories for Monday

=> ↺ New zero-day flaw hits millions of Linux servers, also affects most Android devices

=> ↺ Linux kernel flaw endangers millions of PCs, servers and Android devices

=> ↺ How to get root on a Linux box, step 1: Make four billion system calls

=> ↺ Kernel bug allows full takeover of Linux devices

=> ↺ Linux bug imperils tens of millions of PCs, servers, and Android phones

=> ↺ Zero-day vulnerability lets Linux applications gain root access

=> ↺ Linux Kernel Bug Allows Local-To-Root Privilege Escalation

=> ↺ Most Android Phones Threatened by Linux Flaw

=> ↺ Critical Linux Kernel Flaw Found

=> ↺ Major Linux and Android exploit exposed by Israeli cyber security firm

=> ↺ Zero-Day Linux Kernel Vulnerability Gives Attacker Root Access, Patch Incoming

=> ↺ Linux zero-day affects most Androids, millions of PCs

=> ↺ Android and Linux Zero-Day Gives Attackers Root Access

=> ↺ Zero-day Linux kernel security flaw leaves millions of Android users vulnerable

=> ↺ A 0-Day Local Privilege Escalation Bug Hits The Linux Kernel

=> ↺ An unpleasant local kernel vulnerability

=> ↺ New Linux Trojan makes screenshots and is able to record audio through microphone

=> ↺ New Linux Trojan takes screenshots of desktop and records audio

=> ↺ Linux trojan takes screenshots every 30 seconds, has ability to record sound

=> ↺ Linux Hit with Malware That Saves Activity Screenshots Every 30 Seconds

=> ↺ These White Hat Hackers Tell You All The Different Ways Your Phone Can Be Hacked

• As new mobile threats continue to emerge, the white hat hackers are busy busting the ways your phone can be hacked to safeguard the public from these attacks. In the recent episode of Phreaked Out by Motherboard, we’ll be looking closely into these different methods that challenge our internal security.

=> ↺ Romania to raise ICT security awareness

• Romania’s Ministry for ICT has published a manual to raise government workers’ awareness of ICT security. The “Computer Security Guide for Civil Servants” is also meant as a starting point for public administration’s IT departments to produce similar guidelines and manuals.

=> ↺ The state of container security

• Chief Architect for the central US at Red Hat, Thomas Cameron, has been in the information technology industry since 1993, and has worked with industries ranging from high tech manufacturing, multinational financial services, information technology services, education, energy production, transportation, and large scale retail services.

=> ↺ Linux Vulnerability and Trojan Causing Headaches

• The news on everyone front page today involves another Linux kernel flaw that allows a local user to gain root privileges. Along those same lines is a trojan recently discovered that takes screenshots and attempts to make recordings through your microphone. In other news, Jeff Hoogland explained why he chooses Ubuntu on which to base Bodhi and Peter Hutterer clarified the importance of the X.Org Foundation.

=> ↺ Linux Trojan Takes Screenshots And Captures Audio

=> ↺ New Linux Trojan takes Screenshots and Records Audio

=> ↺ Linux Trojan captures audio and takes screenshots

=> ↺ The Linux Kernel Had Many Vulnerabilities Last Year

=> ↺ Linux zero-day hangs heaviest over Android and IoT

=> ↺ Huge Number Of Critical Flaws Revealed In Apple, Android, Linux And Oracle Systems

=> ↺ Linux Vulnerability Exposes 66 Percent of All Android Devices to Attacks: Report

=> ↺ Overlooked Linux Bug Puts ‘Tens of Millions’ of Computers and Phones at Risk

=> ↺ Linux flaw puts millions of PCs, Android smart devices at risk

=> ↺ Linux Flaw Affects Millions Of Users And Variety Of Devices

=> ↺ Linux zero-day affects most Androids, millions of Linux PCs

=> ↺ Kernel bug allows full takeover of Linux devices

=> ↺ Debian issues patch for widespread Linux flaw

=> ↺ Newly discovered security flaw could let hackers control 66% of all Android devices

=> ↺ Android and Linux Zero-Day Gives Attackers Root Access

=> ↺ Linux zero-day vulnerability leaves millions of PCs and 66% of Android devices at risk

=> ↺ Linux vulnerability puts millions of people at risk — Android users should panic

=> ↺ Critical Linux Kernel Flaw Found

=> ↺ 66% of Android devices at risk as zero-day flaw found in Linux

=> ↺ Linux bug leaves ‘tens of millions’ of PCs and two thirds of all Android phones vulnerable to takeovers

=> ↺ Hack Brief: Years-Old Linux Bug Exposes Millions of Devices

=> ↺ Major Linux and Android exploit went undetected for three years

=> ↺ Another new kernel flaw that Google won’t fix for Android users prompts more switching to Apple’s iOS

=> ↺ Zero-Day Flaw Found in Linux

• An Israeli cybersecurity startup has discovered a zero-day security flaw in the Linux kernel that runs millions of servers, desktops as well as mobile devices that use the Android operating system. An attacker could abuse the flaw to gain root-level privileges on a device and execute arbitrary code or steal any data stored on the device.

=> ↺ Massive Linux vulnerability discovered

=> ↺ Top Story: Severe Linux flaw hits millions of Android gadgets too

=> ↺ Millions of Linux servers and PCs, 66% of Android devices vulnerable to serious 3 year old bug

=> ↺ Linux, Android Flaw Affects Millions

=> ↺ Security Experts Discover Linux Kernel Bug That Gives Attackers Root Level Access To Computers, Android Smartphones

=> ↺ Linux kernel zero-day flaw puts ‘tens of millions’ of PCs, servers and Android devices at risk

=> ↺ Zero day Linux vulnerability targets Android

Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

=> ↺ CIA Director Visits Egypt Amid Crackdown

• CIA DIRECTOR JOHN BRENNAN wrapped up a two-day visit to Cairo this week where he held meetings with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and security officials to discuss regional developments and terrorism.

• Brennan, a 25-year CIA veteran who has played a role backing some of the most controversial post-9/11 policies, lauded the strategic relations between Egypt and the United States and emphasized the need to boost cooperation in all areas, including on security issues, according to a statement from the presidential spokesperson’s office.

Finance

=> ↺ #GrantsNotDebt: students protest against scrapping of grants – in pictures

• Thousands of students have protested against the government’s decision to scrap maintenance grants for poorer students. Protesters, who say the plans amount to a ‘direct attack’ on working class young people, gathered outside the House of Commons in Westminster on Tuesday afternoon and also blocked Westminster Bridge. Under the new system, grants worth up to £3,500 will be scrapped and replaced with loans. Labour has said that ditching the grants will dash the ‘hopes and dreams of a generation of strivers’.

=> ↺ Arrogant Tory minister mocks millions of students as “shroud-wavers” while scrapping maintenance grants

• An arrogant Tory Minister has dismissed millions of students as “shroud-wavers” despite their fury over the Government axing maintenance grants for the poorest.

• Education Minister Nick Boles, part of David Cameron ’s ultra-rich ‘Notting Hill set’, mocked the young campaigners who had gathered outside Parliament to beg the Government to think again.

• He was speaking as Tory MPs voted down Labour’s last-ditch Commons bid to block the cruel plan.

• Sneering Mr Boles told Labour: “In opposition, a party will take the irresponsible route, in an attempt to curry favour with the National Union of Shroud-wavers – I mean, sorry, Students.

• “In Government it will suddenly discover the merits of a sustainable system.”

=> ↺ You thought ISDS was bad? TTIP’s “regulatory cooperation” is even worse.

• Last month, Ars wrote about the threat posed by the inclusion of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) agreement. ISDS allows foreign investors to sue entire nations in special tribunals for the alleged expropriation of future profits through changes in laws or regulations. The acronym is now becoming quite well known, not least because the company behind the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline announced a few weeks ago that it would be using ISDS to sue the US, claiming $15 billion (£10.5 billion) compensation for its supposed losses as a result of the Obama administration’s failure to approve the Keystone XL pipeline.

=> ↺ Smog, Censorship, Antiforeign Sentiment: U.S. Firms’ China Woes

=> ↺ The Guardian view on the global economy: China sends a shiver through Davos

=> ↺ US firms moving operations out of China: survey

=> ↺ ‘More Realistic’ Modelling Of TPP’s Effects Predicts 450,000 US Jobs Lost, Contraction Of Economy

• Last week we wrote about a World Bank report that predicted that TPP would produce negligible boosts to the economies of the US, Australia and Canada. Of course, that’s just one study, and it could be argued that it might be unrepresentative, or unduly pessimistic

PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

=> ↺ Donald Trump says he will get Apple to ‘start building their damn computers and things’ in the US

• Speaking at Liberty University today, Trump escalated his rhetoric on Apple’s overseas manufacturing, and claimed somehow the US would reclaim those jobs in the future. “We have such amazing people in this country: smart, sharp, energetic, they’re amazing,” Trump said. “I was saying make America great again, and I actually think we can say now, and I really believe this, we’re gonna get things coming… we’re gonna get Apple to start building their damn computers and things in this country, instead of in other countries.”

=> ↺ GOP strategist says Trump supporters are “childless single men who masturbate to anime”

• The growing association between the Alt Right and anime (previously: how anime avatars became a warning) is pretty weird, isn’t it?

• The “sociology” seems obvious—a generation of angry, badly-socialized adolescent men letting their nerddom and sexuality curdle in public—but that’s the too-easy answer.

=> ↺ Daily News, NY Post Differ On Sarah Palin’s Endorsement Of Donald Trump

• New York City’s tabloids have two different takes on Sarah Palin’s endorsement of Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump.

• The New York Daily News slammed the endorsement on its front page, showing a picture of the two with the headline “I’m With Stupid,” with the smaller print reading, “Hate minds this alike: Palin endorses Trump.”

• The New York Post went in the completely opposite direction, showing Palin and Trump shaking hands with the headline “Lady and the Trump,” followed by, “Sarah, Donald make love in Iowa.”

Censorship

=> ↺ Indian telcos to offer parents censorship tool for porn sites

• All major Indian telecom companies, including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Reliance Communications, Telenor and Reliance Jio Infocomm, are considering handing over a responsibility to consumers, who would be able to exclude access to porn sites from their subscriptions. This would be done by offering them a censorship tool.

=> ↺ Alice Munro: Censors think “if we don’t write about sex, it will disappear”

• Alice Munro once told the New York Times that her hometown of Wingham, Ont. is “the most interesting place in the world,” and in 1978, her statement perhaps rang a little truer to Canadians who’ve never driven County Road 86. Huron County, which is where you’ll find Wingham, was involved in a censorship controversy, one so notable that it played a part in the creation of Canada’s Freedom to Read Week. This year’s edition doesn’t kick off until February 21, but on this day in 1979, CBC invited Munro to the Take 30 studio to talk about her experience as the target of censorship — and to discuss the power of books in general.

=> ↺ Cracking Down On Talk Of ‘Rapefugees,’ Facebook Has Become The World’s Most Dangerous Censor

=> ↺ Why ProPublica Joined the Dark Web

=> ↺ Fighting Global Censorship, ProPublica Joins the Dark Web

=> ↺ ProPublica Launches the Dark Web’s First Major News Site

• On Wednesday, ProPublica became the first known major media outlet to launch a version of its site that runs as a “hidden service” on the Tor network, the anonymity system that powers the thousands of untraceable websites that are sometimes known as the darknet or dark web. The move, ProPublica says, is designed to offer the best possible privacy protections for its visitors seeking to read the site’s news with their anonymity fully intact. Unlike mere SSL encryption, which hides the content of the site a web visitor is accessing, the Tor hidden service would ensure that even the fact that the reader visited ProPublica’s website would be hidden from an eavesdropper or Internet service provider.

=> ↺ Cuban Director Cremata Speaks of Censorship

• Monologo de la Presidenta (“A Monologue by Madam President”), a one-act play and testimony by Juan Carlos Cremata, has been circulating around the Internet since last week. The piece offers details of the meeting where the film and theater director was informed that his play El rey se muere (“The King is Dying”), an adaptation of Romanian-French playwright Eugene Ionoesco’s work, was being censored.

=> ↺ Frankie Boyle Responds To Guardian Censorship Of Graphic Rupert Murdoch Column

• Frankie Boyle has hit out at the Guardian after the newspaper deleted parts of his latest column which described media mogul Rupert Murdoch struggling “to sire another generation… by squeezing out his sperm like stale toothpaste”.

• The graphic, imaginary depiction of Murdoch’s sex life appears to have caused Guardian editors to splutter, as they ordered its deletion hours after the column was published online.

=> ↺ No need for censorship : Prakash Jha

=> ↺ India does not need film censorship, says director Prakash Jha

=> ↺ Sad that student chose death over life: Prakash Jha

=> ↺ Student’s suicide mirrors the time we live in: Prakash Jha

=> ↺ Prakash Jha’s ‘Jai Gangaajal’ is decorated with twelve folk songs

=> ↺ No Need for censorship: Prakash Jha

=> ↺ Portuguese ‘Anti-Piracy’ Site Blocking Used Against US Video Game Developer

• One of the reasons why many people are opposed to various “site blocking” laws, is that inevitably such things get abused. And while the US successfully stopped SOPA’s site blocking plan, plenty of other countries went ahead and implemented something similar — including, apparently, Portugal. Yet, earlier today, reports came out that the Portuguese site-blocking system was now blocking the website of an American video game development shop called Carbon Games.

Privacy

=> ↺ You are not what you read: librarians purge user data to protect privacy

• Last week, with little fanfare, the Graduate Center at the City University of New York did something very few private companies would ever do to protect its users’ privacy: it quietly began to purge its interlibrary loan records.

• “This policy change is motivated by the idea that libraries should not keep more information about their users’ requests than necessary,” wrote Beth Posner, head of library resource sharing at the school.

• “We will continue to keep all requests from 2013 forward until further notice; eventually we will only keep a rolling history of one year or less, though, in order to help ensure that ILL requests remain confidential,” she told students and faculty in the email. “Previously, you could find a list of everything you ever requested through ILL.”

=> ↺ Cryptoparty

• Over the past two years, I have been part of the CryptoParty movement. I have learnt and shared knowledge at at least hundred CryptoParties, and I have organized dozens of sessions all over Europe. I have done my share of nights thinking and discussing how to get more people engaged, how to spread the movement in new places and simply how to be better in general.

• Today, I am leaving CryptoParty.

• CryptoParty helped me when I needed it. I am thankful for everything I learnt at CryptoParty Berlin, for every conversation that helped me understand surveillance and how to act against it, for every moment people spent with me, explaining over and over again what I didn’t unsterstand.

• [...]

• If CryptoParty doesn’t rethink the core of its non-structure, the movement will keep failing without even noticing it.

• I am done failing with CryptoParty. It is time to build up something new.

=> ↺ VPN Providers Condemn Netflix Blocking Crackdown

• VPN providers have unanimously condemned Netflix’s crackdown on subscribers who use so-called unblocking services. Several VPN companies have announced counter-measures, while others raise the issue of Net Neutrality, suggesting that there are better ways to tackle abuse.

=> ↺ Friends Reunited website to close after 15 years

• Though it has been around since Mark Zuckerberg was just 15 years old, one of the original social networking websites is to close

=> ↺ Top police body-cam companies get embroiled in a patent smackdown

• Two major providers of police body-worn cameras have become embroiled in a patent battle.

• Kansas-based Digital Ally sued Arizona-based Taser International late last week. The company accused Taser’s Axon Flex body cameras of infringing its US Patent No. 8,781,292. The patent describes linking together a body-worn camera, a vehicle-based camera, and a “managing apparatus” that communicate with each other.

=> ↺ Hillary Clinton Continues To Say Ridiculous Things About Encryption… Without Ever Taking A Real Position

• But, of course, that’s the exact same language that FBI Director James Comey had used previously in arguing for a backdoor — that if only Silicon Valley would “work with” the FBI and put its “brightest minds” to the task, there must be some way to create a backdoor. But, again, that ignores the real problem that technologists have raised over and over again. The problem is not in creating a backdoor. Anyone can create a backdoor. The problem is creating a backdoor that only the “good guys” can use. You automatically undermine the safety and security of encryption for everyone when you create a backdoor. That’s the problem.

• But Clinton is trying to work both sides here. She says stuff that’s a dog whistle to law enforcement types about backdooring encryption, without ever actually admitting she supports backdooring encryption. She later doubled down on these dog whistle statements in a TV interview on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos.

=> ↺ Encryption backdoors by law? France says ‘non’

• A proposed amendment to France’s Digital Republic Bill, suggesting mandatory hardware backdoors to bypass encryption, has been rejected by the government.

=> ↺ Facebook Android App Gets Built-in TOR Support But Still Needs Your Real Name

• If you are interested in increasing the security and privacy of your network traffic, here’s a great news for you. Facebook has just rolled out experimental TOR support for its Android app. Well, Facebook still needs your real name and information — how is that a way to stay anonymous? These are the questions that Facebook needs to answer.

=> ↺ British GCHQ’s voice call encryption has a backdoor

• A security protocol designed and promoted by British spooks for encrypting voice calls has a by-design weakness built into it that could allow for mass surveillance.

• University College London researcher Steven Murdoch, who works in the university’s Information Security Research Group, analysed a protocol developed by CESG, which is part of the spy agency GCHQ.

=> ↺ What’s The Difference Between ‘Mass Surveillance’ And ‘Bulk Collection’? Does It Matter?

• As numerous Techdirt stories make clear, the particular words used to describe something can make a big difference in how it is perceived. For example, intelligence agencies like to avoid the use of the bad-sounding “mass surveillance,” with its Orwellian overtones, and prefer to talk about “bulk collection,” which can be presented as some kind of cool big data project. No one is more vociferous in insisting that they are not engaged in mass surveillance, but merely bulk collection, than the UK’s Home Secretary, Theresa May. She was pushing that line again last week, during a grilling by a UK Parliamentary committee about her proposed Snooper’s Charter.

=> ↺ The NSA Wouldn’t Let Us in This Building (But We Found Out What’s Inside)

• “All the data flowing through AT&T at the time was going in and nobody knew what was going on inside,” said Ashdown, who also says he was told the Utah Data Center is not connected to the internet all all.

• “I started to realize that it is just a data collection point. That they are collecting and storing as much data off the internet and telephone networks that they can. And they think that if you ask for a warrant later to look at the data that’s okay,” said Ashdown.

• Thanks to the USA Freedom Act, in November 2015, the NSA lost the ability to directly hold information about the phone calls of millions of U.S. citizens. While the change is significant, the NSA can still collect and store your communication from the internet and social media.

• “If you trust the government is going to do the right thing I think you’re alone in that respect,” said Ashdown.

=> ↺ GCHQ offers students summer job with a difference

=> ↺ GCHQ summer school will pay students £250 per week

=> ↺ GCHQ offers students summer job with a difference

=> ↺ GCHQ to stage ‘summer school’ in Manchester to spy out potential young recruits

=> ↺ Fancy Being Paid £250 to Become a Hacker? Apply to GCHQ’s Summer Schools

=> ↺ GCHQ launches summer schools to train next generation of cyber spies

=> ↺ How to become a spy in the summer holidays

=> ↺ Spy agency GCHQ on the hunt for teenage boffins to join its ranks

=> ↺ Cyber security course to pay attendees £250 a week

=> ↺ Crypto Pushed By the UK Government Has a Big Security Loophole

=> ↺ British voice encryption protocol has massive weakness, researcher says

=> ↺ For fsck’s SAKKE: GCHQ-built phone voice encryption has massive backdoor – researcher

• The UK government’s official voice encryption protocol, around which it is hoping to build an ecosystem of products, has a massive backdoor that would enable the security services to intercept and listen to all past and present calls, a researcher has discovered.

• Dr Steven Murdoch of University College London has posted an extensive blog post digging into the MIKEY-SAKKE spec in which he concludes that it has been specifically designed to “allow undetectable and unauditable mass surveillance.”

• He notes that in the “vast majority of cases” the protocol would be “actively harmful for security.”

• Murdoch uses the EFF’s scorecard as a way of measuring the security of MIKEY-SAKKE, and concludes that it only manages to meet one of the four key elements for protocol design, namely that it provides end-to-end encryption.

=> ↺ Insecure by design: protocols for encrypted phone calls

• The current state of security for phone calls leaves a lot to be desired. Land-line calls are almost entirely unencrypted, and cellphone calls are also unencrypted except for the radio link between the handset and the phone network. While the latest cryptography standards for cellphones (3G and 4G) are reasonably strong it is possible to force a phone to fall back to older standards with easy-to-break cryptography, if any. The vast majority of phones will not reveal to their user whether such an attack is under way.

=> ↺ Seattle Privacy Coalition joins other “state-sponsored” attack targets to demand answers from Twitter

• Many or most of the attack targets were involved in privacy advocacy or information security research. As a consequence, some targets (including three board members of Seattle Privacy) were present at the Chaos Communication Congress, the great hacker convention in Hamburg, Germany, in late December. We met and discussed how to respond to the mysterious and alarming notification. Our individual efforts to learn more about the who/what/when/why behind the attacks had gone nowhere, so we decided to take collective action.

• [...]

• As privacy activists who lawfully petitioned our various governments to protect our essential human rights, we now find ourselves the object of government overreach. Many of us became acquainted for the first time through our collective harm and our search for answers. Where no conspiracy existed before, the actions of an unknown government have created one.

=> ↺ Why Is The Discovery Of New Largest Prime Number A Great News For Encryption?

• Prime numbers are the numbers that are divisible by themselves and one, for example, 2,3,5,11 and 13. This new number was a result of the Great Internet Messene Prime Search (GIMPS) collaboration, which is an effort by the volunteers from all around the world to find a larger prime number. The team at the University of Central Missouri, that broke this record, also held the past record.

=> ↺ Snowden: Ladies, I Have A Girlfriend. Don’t Send Me Your Nude Pictures On Twitter

• The NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is again in the news. Not for any revelations this time, but for the reason that his twitter DM has been filled with nude pictures by his lady followers. In his tweet, he asked users not send him “Christmas Presents” as he has a girlfriend and FBI is after him.

=> ↺ A Campaign to #TakeCTRL of Our Privacy Sweeps the Nation (And You Thought Bipartisanship Was Dead)

• What do Pennsylvania high school student Blake Robbins, Mississippi middle school student Richard Wade, Maryland Division of Corrections Officer Robert Collins, and Kim Kardashian-West all have in common?

• I suspect most people would guess nothing, but that would be wrong. It turns out they have a common affliction that impacts nearly everyone living in the digital age. Yes, that’s right, you probably have it too. Let’s take a look.

=> ↺ How Americans Can Take Back Our Privacy

• Americans from across the political spectrum have become increasingly outraged and outspoken as they have learned more about growing surveillance by governments and corporations.

=> ↺ As Law To Backdoor Encryption Stalls, Congress Tries Backup Stupid Plan To Backdoor Encryption

• Late last year, Senator Richard Burr, who is painfully wrong on encryption, announced that he and Senator Dianne Feinstein were working on new legislation that would mandate backdoors to encryption. Most people recognized that such a bill had little-to-no chance of actually passing Congress, as there are at least enough folks up on Capitol Hill who realize that such a law is incredibly stupid. Given that, it’s little surprise that reporter Jenna McLaughlin from The Intercept is reporting that such legislation “has been delayed.”

=> ↺ Multi-State Privacy Push Paves the Way for National Reform

• Today, lawmakers in 16 states and the District of Columbia announced new legislative efforts designed to protect Americans from intrusion into their personal data by schools, employers or government. The proposed laws focus on a range of issues, such as email and other electronic communications, employees’ use of social media, cell phone trackers and license plate readers. Should these measures pass, it would send a strong signal to other states and Congress that Americans remain concerned about protecting their privacy.

• Congress seems unwilling or unable to address these issues. The federal laws governing online privacy date to 1986, five years before the World Wide Web existed. Legislation to update the privacy laws for email and other electronic communications has won strong bipartisan support but has repeatedly stalled.

=> ↺ Court: With a warrant, cops can search basically anywhere on your phone

• In a 4-3 decision, Massachusetts’ highest court ruled Friday that with a warrant, it’s ok for police to search anywhere on a seized phone that may reasonably turn up evidence of the crime under investigation.

• In the case of Commonwealth v. Dorelas, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (MSJC) found that because the Boston Police Department (BPD) had a warrant to search a criminal suspect’s seized iPhone, it could access his photos as well.

=> ↺ Blackberry — Which Said It Wouldn’t Protect Criminals — Assures Criminals Its Phones Are Still Secure

• Never mind the “reportedly may be used by organized criminal groups.” That’s something any law enforcement agency would say when describing its ability to crack open phones and pull out contents presumed to be protected by the device. There are privacy concerns that need to be addressed — along with concerns about how these devices are searched — and claiming Device X is “reportedly” used by Unnamed Criminal Organization Y is a simple way of sidestepping these uncomfortable questions.

Civil Rights

=> ↺ China’s Search for Dissidents Has Now Expanded to Foreign Countries

• Gui Minhai, a publisher of scurrilous reports about the Chinese leadership, appears to have been abducted from the Thai resort of Pattaya before turning up weeks later on Chinese TV

=> ↺ Conservative Government accused of ‘waging war’ on Parliament by forcing through key law changes without debate

• Ministers are being accused of “waging war” on Parliament by using a little-known device to push through profound and controversial changes to Britain’s laws without proper debate or scrutiny.

• Since the election the Conservative Government has used a parliamentary procedure called a statutory instrument to try to introduce swathes of significant new laws covering everything from fracking to fox hunting and benefit cuts without debate on the floor of the House of Commons.

• On Tuesday, Labour will take the rare step of attempting to annul a statutory instrument that was used earlier this month to remove maintenance grants from around half a million of the poorest students in England. The changes will mainly hit disabled, ethnic minority and older students.

=> ↺ DEA So Forfeiture-Focused It Hired A TSA Screener To Check Travelers And Baggage For ‘Guilty’ Cash

• Here you are: written evidence that asset forfeiture leads to law enforcement activity, rather than the other way around. (h/t Brad Heath)

• The DEA has already been blasted by the DOJ’s Inspector General for its confidential informant program. The DEA’s informants were paid when they weren’t producing intel. They were paid and sheltered from prosecution when they committed criminal acts falling outside their purview as informants. And the entire program was adrift in a sea of corruption and chaos, subject to no real oversight. To top it all off, Inspector General Michael Horowitz had to battle the DEA for every document and piece of relevant information just to arrive at these conclusions.

=> ↺ Court Points Out The Fourth Amendment Still Protects Public School Students From Illegal Searches

• Students don’t sacrifice their Constitutional rights when they walk through the school’s door. Their protections are somewhat diminished but they don’t evaporate completely. There are reasons their rights aren’t eliminated and those are tied to the operation of government employees outside of the school doors.

=> ↺ South Carolina Politicians Propose Ridiculous Plan To Register Journalists… To Make A Statement About Gun Control

• In a move that seems pretty clearly designed to piss off journalists (but will likely backfire seriously), South Carolina State Rep. Mike Pitts, has introduced a bill to “register journalists” supposedly to make a “point” about gun control. The bill is, laughably, called South Carolina Responsible Journalism Registry Law which would “establish requirements for persons before working as a journalist for a media outlet and for media outlets before hiring a journalist. It would fine people for conducting journalism without registration or for hiring a “journalist” not on the registry.

=> ↺ UK Appeals Court Says UK Terrorism Act’s Detention Clause Violates Press Freedoms

• As you may recall, back in 2013, soon after the Snowden revelations, the UK detained David Miranda at Heathrow Airport and took a bunch of his electronics, as he was flying through (from Germany on his way back home to Brazil). Miranda is Glenn Greenwald’s partner, and the claim by the UK was that in Berlin he had picked up copies of Snowden documents. The UK claimed that the detention was okay under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act, which allows for detaining terrorists, not journalists. But the UK said that it was okay, because it classified publishing Snowden documents as an act of terrorism.

• Miranda sued in the UK, arguing that his rights were violated. Almost two years ago, a court ruled that the detention was lawful. Miranda appealed, and in an important ruling this morning, the appeals court said that, while Miranda’s detention may have been lawful, Schedule 7 is incompatible with human rights, with regards to protecting journalists, and could be subject to abuse (even if it says that Miranda’s detention wasn’t necessarily abusive). The court more or less ruled that the authorities acted within reason, given the existing law, but a specific part of the law, regarding how it handles journalists, was a problem with regards to the guarantees for a free press.

Internet/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ Here’s Verizon’s Shiny New Assault On Net Neutrality

• Verizon has joined the chorus of companies testing the FCC’s willingness to enforce its own net neutrality rules. The telco just unveiled something it’s calling FreeBee sponsored data, which effectively lets content companies pay to have their content exempt from wireless user usage caps. Much like AT&T’s controversial sponsored data service, the service makes a mockery of net neutrality in that it lets companies pay to give their content a leg up in the marketplace, putting other competitors at a distinct disadvantage.

=> ↺ VPN Providers Laugh Off Netflix’s New Futile War On VPNs

• So yeah, Netflix knows a war on VPNs and proxies is futile, it’s just trying to placate broadcasters in new partner countries. Those broadcasters are (quite correctly) nervous about Netflix coming to town and utterly demolishing the kind of power and influence they’ve enjoyed for a generation or more. As we saw in Australia, many of these companies aren’t really familiar with what competition looks like and don’t really understand how technology works, so they’ve been pressuring Netflix and governments to wage war on VPNs — as if this is going to somehow save them from the looming Internet video revolution.

Intellectual Monopolies

=> ↺ Medicines Patent Pool Announces Sub-Licensing Agreements For Hepatitis C Generics

• The Medicines Patent Pool today announced its first round of sub-licensing agreements with four generic manufacturers for the production and sale of a generic line of Bristol-Myers Squibb’s daclatasvir to 112 lower-to middle income countries.

• The initial list of sub-licences for the production of daclatasvir includes Cipla, Hetero and Emcure, all generic manufacturers with which the MPP has already partnered with in producing generic HIV antiretrovirals, according to the MPP press release.

=> ↺ Panels Look At IP Considerations In Representing Creative Talent

• At a conference of hundreds of performers and agents in a hotel perched on Times Square this week, panellists told some interesting stories about intellectual property rights and protecting – or failing to protect – creations and performances.

Copyrights

=> ↺ Hollywood Helps Show Why DMCA Takedowns Are Dangerous, By Taking Down Links To MPAA’s Search Engine

• A little over a year ago, the MPAA pulled out all the stops in announcing and promoting its new WhereToWatch.com website, which provides lots of information on where you can watch authorized versions of various movies and TV shows. The idea behind it was certainly a noble one. One of the big arguments made by many concerning accessing unauthorized copies of such content is that there aren’t real legal alternatives. So the MPAA figured that if it makes it easier to find such authorized alternatives that would be helpful. And, indeed, that’s a good idea.

• Of course, underlying all of this was that the MPAA hoped to use this site to try to undermine the argument that piracy is about a lack of alternatives. The MPAA basically never misses a chance these days to point to the site as “proof” that Hollywood is meeting consumer needs, and thus claiming that piracy is not about a lack of authorized versions. It seems worth noting that this leaves out that not all authorized versions are convenient (which is another big complaint), including things like restrictive DRM or security-faulty technology. Or they do stupid things (at the demand of Hollywood) like only letting you watch a movie you paid for within a 24-hour time frame. But, let’s leave that aside for the moment.

=> ↺ Court Grants Free Legal Assistance to Accused Movie Pirates

• With up to $150,000 in damages available to plaintiffs in copyright infringement cases involving just a single movie, being a defendant can be a scary prospect. However, a judge in the United States has just thrown a small but significant lifetime to a number of assumed pirates, by granting them access to a panel of lawyers free of charge.

=> ↺ US Supreme Court to review attorneys’ fee awards in copyright cases

• Publisher John Wiley & Sons and a graduate from Cornell University are heading back to the US Supreme Court after a writ concerning the standard for awarding attorneys’ fees in copyright cases was granted.

• Supap Kirtsaeng complained there is a “circuit split” over the issue and requested that the Supreme Court define what the “appropriate standard for awarding attorneys’ fees” is under section 505 of the Copyright Act.

• The Supreme Court confirmed on Friday, January 15, that it will hear the case.

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.