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● 03.08.16

● Links 8/3/2016: Future Kodi Versions, Solus 1.1

Posted in News Roundup at 7:51 pm by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

=> ↺ It’s Official, You Can Now Boot Linux on Your PlayStation 4 Gaming Console

• Famous fail0verflow hacking group has announced the release of the missing piece that would allow PS4 owners to boot a Linux kernel-based operating system on their gaming console.

• As reported by us on the last day of 2015, the fail0verflow team managed to hack Sony’s PlayStation 4 (PS4) console to run the well-known Gentoo Linux operating system.

=> ↺ New Hope Technology Project Brings Linux to Taylor, Texas

• It’s said that the wheels of progress turn slowly. That proves to be true to the nth when dealing with any kind of government. Be that as it may, things do happen eventually. This week is a shining example of what can be accomplished when a city and a private group band together for the common good.

Desktop

=> ↺ How to turn your old PC into a speedy Chromebook for free

• One of the great ironies of the cloud computing age is that the five to ten year old laptop gathering dust in your desk drawer probably has more horsepower than a top of the line Chromebook which just hit the market. That means you can take a long dormant unit out of retirement and it will typically run quite quickly when paired with a lightweight operating system like Chrome.

Server

=> ↺ ​Why has SQL Server come to Linux? Windows-only cloud makes no sense

• Some people are asking why. After all, with MySQL, MariaDB, postgreSQL, and Oracle Database 12c Linux, there’s no shortage of RDBMS servers on Linux.

Kernel Space

=> ↺ Linux Kernel 3.18.28 LTS Brings Btrfs and EXT4 Improvements, Updated Drivers

• After reporting news on the release of Linux 3.14.63 and Linux 3.10.99 long-term supported kernels, today we inform our readers about the availability of the twenty-eighth maintenance build for the Linux 3.18 LTS kernel series.

• The announcement for Linux kernel 3.18.28 LTS has been posted by its maintainer, renowned kernel developer Sasha Levin, who published links to the updated 3.18.y git tree, which users can browse by clicking the link below, along with the diff from the 3.18.27 maintenance release.

=> ↺ Linux Kernel 4.1.19 LTS Has IPv6, IPv4, and Btrfs Fixes, Many Updated Drivers

=> ↺ Etnaviv DRM Driver Gets Some Improvements For Linux 4.6

• With the Linux 4.5 kernel comes the net Etnaviv DRM kernel driver while some improvements have already been baking for Linux 4.6.

=> ↺ My Favorite Features/Changes Of The Linux 4.5 Kernel

• With Linux 4.5 looking like it will release next weekend, here’s a look at my favorite features/changes of Linux 4.5

=> ↺ diff -u: What’s New in Kernel Development

• System calls notoriously have insufficient error reporting. Some take lots of inputs, and if any of them are wrong in any way, or fail some obscure bounds check, the call returns “EINVAL” for invalid data, but doesn’t give any other clue about which piece of data had the problem, or what the value was, or where in the code the problem occurred.

• Alexander Shishkin recently tried to implement a solution to this. The real issue though is that the kernel can’t simply change the way system calls handle return values. There’s code all through the kernel and in userland that depends upon the current behavior. Any solution, therefore, would somehow have to provide additional reporting information, withou

=> ↺ AMDGPU Get More Fixes Ahead Of Linux 4.6 Merge Window

Graphics Stack

=> ↺ [ANNOUNCE] wayland-protocols 1.2

Applications

=> ↺ darktable 2.0.2 Open-Source RAW Image Editor Has DNG and Fujifilm X-Pro2 Support

• The second point release for the powerful darktable 2.0 open-source and cross-platform RAW image editor software has been released this past weekend with interesting new features and changes.

=> ↺ 5 Free Alternatives To Google Drive On Linux

• Google Drive is one of the most popular, fremium cloud storage service from Google. Gdrive is an official client for Google drive and a must have application for Windows. But sadly the most popular service can’t be used on Linux via any official client like Gdrive. So I thought to find free alternatives to Google Drive on Linux and I came up with the list of 5 free cloud storage services that provide client for Linux. I know you’ll love it.

=> ↺ Try This Mac-Inspired ‘Notes’ Clone For Linux

• The shelves of Ubuntu Software Center hosts ample stock, from basic on-screen sticky notes to complex, tag-based command-line clients.

• But if you can’t find the lean, clean and easy to use note taking app of you dreams amongst them do take a look at Notes.

=> ↺ MComix 1.2.1 Is An Awesome Comic Book Reader

• As you may know, MComix is a free and open-source comic book reader for Linux (based on Comix) that supports both western comics and manga, in specific formats, including CBR, CBZ, CB7, LHA and PDF.

=> ↺ Avidemux 2.6.12 Has Been Released

=> ↺ gtrendsR 1.3.3

=> ↺ Variety 0.6.0 (Open-Source Wallpaper Changing Software) Has Been Released

=> ↺ Kodi 17 Is Getting New Themes/Skins

• While Kodi 16 just recently shipped, the developers behind this open-source HTPC software formerly known as XBMC have already set their sights on Kodi 17.

=> ↺ A brand new look for future Kodi versions

• A long, long time ago when Kodi was still called XBMC, a new skin came into life. It was on 21 November 2009 that the switch was made from PM3.HD to Confluence. Over the years it has fulfilled it’s purpose as the default skin which every one sees on a fresh Kodi installation and many likely never switched to one of the other skins available. During this period Confluence received several minor tweaks and updates and only one big change when we switched from a vertical to horizontal main menu.

=> ↺ Easily Backup Photos And Videos From Multiple Android And iOS Devices To Your Desktop With DAEMON Sync

Proprietary

=> ↺ Vivaldi Beta 3 Has Been Released

• As you may know, Vivaldi is a Chromium-based open-source internet browser, built by the Opera founder. It did not reach a stable version yet, but it is already usable.

=> ↺ 6 Opera Classic Features I wish modern browsers would integrate

• The classic Opera web browser was ahead of its time in many regards for most of its existence. Despite that, it never managed to attract a large audience even though it did considerably well nevertheless.

• Opera Software highlighted some of the innovations of the classic Opera browser as part of Opera’s 15th birthday celebration and it shows how innovative Opera Software was.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ Beginner’s Guide to Installing Node.js on a Raspberry Pi

=> ↺ Backup and restore Gmail with GMvault

=> ↺ libsigc++ 3.0: Very variadic

=> ↺ How To Save And Restore The Unity Session In Ubuntu (Using A Script)

=> ↺ uTox installation on Ubuntu and Fedora Linux

=> ↺ HOW TO SET GRUB2 PASSWORD IN RHEL7/CENTOS 7

=> ↺ Multiple choice using Django’s postgres ArrayField

=> ↺ Floating-point precision error with Ruby

=> ↺ Weekly phpMyAdmin contributions 2016-W09

=> ↺ Gigabyte MP30-AR0: Flashing UEFI

=> ↺ How to enable Kdump on RHEL 7 and CentOS 7

=> ↺ Top 7 Things You’ll Mostly Need to Do After Installing Ubuntu 16.04 Xenial Xerus

=> ↺ How To Install Wine 1.9.5 on Ubuntu

=> ↺ How To Install Wine Staging 1.9.4 On Ubuntu And Derivative Systems

=> ↺ Find Out Your Computer’s Hardware Specs With CPU-G

=> ↺ How To Install Notepadqq 0.51 on Ubuntu And Arch Linux

=> ↺ How To Install QuodLibet 3.5.3 on Ubuntu And Debian

=> ↺ uTox installation on Ubuntu and Fedora Linux

=> ↺ 20 rocking Things to do after installing Fedora 23

=> ↺ How To Save And Restore The Unity Session In Ubuntu (Using A Script)

=> ↺ How to Boot Linux ISO Images Directly From Your Hard Drive

=> ↺ Poor Man’s CI

=> ↺ Simple one liner to save battery life and reduce system latency

Wine or Emulation

=> ↺ Wine-Staging 1.9.5 Brings Improvements For Older Windows Games On Linux

• Similar to Wine-Staging 1.9.3 that brought better support for older Windows games, Wine-Staging 1.9.5 has continued that trend in allowing Wine to better handle running Windows games on Linux and other supported operating systems.

Games

=> ↺ SteamOS 2.64 Released with Vulkan-Powered Nvidia Driver, Debian 8.3 Updates

• It would appear that Valve has pushed the 2.64 build of its Debian-based SteamOS gaming-oriented operating system to the stable channel, after being in Beta for the last few weeks or so.

• The stable SteamOS 2.64 update includes mostly the same improvements that we reported on two weeks ago, when the build was pushed by Valve’s engineers to the brewmaster_beta channel for public testing, such as the updated Nvidia video driver, version 355.00.28, with support for the new Vulkan API.

=> ↺ Opinion: Game Nearly Over

• So here’s the news: Microsoft is forcing game developers and game developing companies through the hoop of their app store, encroaching on their revenue and putting itself in the way of dealing directly with the customers. Why am I not in the least bit surprised?

• [...]

• Here’s a thought: If the industry had diversified the platforms they targeted earlier on, say in the mid-2000s, when Linux was starting to come into its own, maybe this situation could’ve been avoided. Yes, marketshare, library support, drivers, hardware support, and so one, were not ideal on Linux back in the day. But we have seen how things can be turned around, right? We have an example in living memory of how, how by unilaterally nurturing a rich ecosystem of apps, you can get users to adopt a new platform. And with a healthy amount of users, developing for the new guys, even developing drivers, suddenly becomes a sound business strategy for third parties. Yes, it is circular reasoning: more apps attract more users and more users attract more apps (which attract more users), but that is how Android became top dog in the mobile app arena.

=> ↺ SteamOS stable updated to 2.64, brings Vulkan to the stable users

• For those not keeping track: SteamOS was recently updated to include the changes from the recent 2.64 beta and it brings Vulkan for Nvidia amongst other changes.

• The only game actually using Vulkan on Linux/SteamOS right now is The Talos Principle from Croteam, but the beta doesn’t currently work on SteamOS directly.

=> ↺ IndieGameStand blog post on Steam key reselling, plus my thoughts

=> ↺ I played American Truck Simulator on Linux, don’t ever let me drive a real truck

• American Truck Simulator arrived on Linux day one, which is fantastic, and I was eventually sent over a key by SCS directly to check it out.

• It’s really not all that different to Euro Truck Simulator 2, with the same engine and the same issues. I will start with the issues to get them out of the way.

=> ↺ Humble Jumbo Bundle 6 Brings Four Superb Games to Linux Users

• Hooray! Hooray! Attention, Linux gamers from all over the web, there’s a new Humble Bundle available that lets you buy up to seven superb, cross-platform games on the cheap, four of them being Linux-ready.

• Humble Jumbo Bundle 6 is now live (click and buy now, read later), and if you’ve subscribed to their list of announcements, you could have probably already received the great news we want to share with you today.

=> ↺ Valve Pushes New Stable Steam Client with Steam Overlay Support for Vulkan Games

• Today, March 8, Valve just pushed a new Steam Client stable update to Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux users, bringing all the changes that have been implemented in the Beta stages of development, and much more.

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

=> ↺ Kirigami (the plasma mobile components) on iOS March 6, 2016

=> ↺ Selecting text in the Calligra-powered Okular plugin for ODT, DOC, DOCX & WPD

• Traveling 8+ hours on the train all the way through Germany to Geneva in Switzerland, where CERN is located (its area spreading across the border to France actually), the place of the WikiToLearn-Plasma-VDG-TechbaseOverhaul meeting, was also a good chance to first spend some time again on a sprint-unrelated, but still KDE-related item, which is adding support for text selection to the Calligra-powered Okular plugin for text documents.

=> ↺ We are digging a hole

• Now, jokes apart, we really are digging a hole. In the academic system. In the spread of knowledge. We are working on a project which will change the academic career of a really high number of students, I’m sure of this. The guys are now at CERN, in Geneve, working hard on the this project. The sprint started this morning, and I am sad about my being at home for many reasons: they will work on topics we have talked on Telegram, they will visit the LHC, Large Hadron Collider, (and you can imagine what means, for a physics student, have the possibility to get there and visiting it) and I am at home. Obviously, I will partecipate at some debates thanks to internet, through livestreams which will be hosted the next days. I just want to whish the guys have good times there, work hard and improve this project.

=> ↺ TechBase Wiki Overhaul at CERN

• KDE’s techbase wiki, “the primary place for technical information about KDE targeted at developers, ISVs and sysadmins”, has been gone lost a little during the transition of KDE software to KF5 and Plasma5.

=> ↺ On my way to CERN for a KDE Sprint

• Time has been crazy lately for me. So crazy that, I haven’t even managed to blog about many things that I wish I’ve had. And because time is till crazy (haven’t finished packing and taking off in a few hours), I’m blogging about this trip in the last 100 meters.

=> ↺ First day @CERN

=> ↺ Touchdown on CERN: Planning to Plan

• Yesterday I landed in Geneva, ready to participate in the 2016 multipurpose Sprint at CERN.

GNOME Desktop/GTK

=> ↺ GNOME Photos 3.20.0

• Now that we are in the middle of the various freezes in preparation for GNOME 3.20, and eventually Fedora 24, it is a good time to talk about some of the things that happened over the last six months. You might have noticed that a bunch of GNOME applications received significant improvements this cycle. If you haven’t, then go ahead and check out the new hotness in Documents, Maps (it is awesome), Nautilus (or Files), Calendar and News.

=> ↺ View your tracks in Maps

• Thought I should mention another nice feature that we have landed for 3.20, thanks to the nice work done by Hashem. Namely that you can now load GPX tracks recorded using i.e. a smart phone into Maps.

• In the layers popover there is now a button to load geographical annotated data, it also supports loading geometries in GEO-Json format and KML (the format used in Google Earth).

=> ↺ GNOME Photos 3.20 Brings Non-Destructive Editing

=> ↺ HACK CAMP 2016 GNOME+FEDORA

• Besides this group of people had received a training about how to install FEDORA in session one and, how to use GNOME and install jhbuild at session two; even more, they are self learning and developers, I realized that it is not enough to show GNOME or FEDORA to newbies if they do not have a base of knowledge of what Linux is.

=> ↺ GNOME News RSS Feed Reader Receives Some Much Needed Attention

• GNOME News is one of the desktop’s applications for serving as an RSS feed reader, but it’s in pretty rough shape compared to the rest of the competition and is in need of more development help.

Distributions

Reviews

=> ↺ Korora 23 review

• Korora Korora 23 is Fedora 23 plus some customizations and extra software installed by default. There are five different editions of Korora, each with a different desktop environment. There are ISOs for Cinnamon, GNOME, KDE, MATE, and Xfce, each of which is about 2GB in size. Unlike Fedora, where GNOME is the default and the other desktop environments are classified as “spins” offering alternative desktop environments, Korora does not make any one desktop the official default.

• Each of the Korora downloads can be burned to a DVD or copied to a flash drive. The media will boot to a live desktop environment the user can test out before installing it to their hard drive using the Anaconda installer. The install process should be extremely familiar to anyone who has used Fedora. During the install process, the user will be able to change language and keyboard options; set the location, date, and time; configure hard drive partitions, configure the network; set the root password; and create a single non-root account.

New Releases

=> ↺ Solus: A welcome ground-up break from the Linux herd

• One thing that’s less clear, is who Solus is really for. Having used it for a couple of months now, I would say that it works well for anyone who wants a traditional desktop experience, but a more modern feeling interface than what you’d find in MATE or Xfce.

• That sounds a bit like what Cinnamon offers, so if you like Cinnamon but want something a little lighter, Solus is a good bet.

=> ↺ An Everyday Linux User Review Of Solus 1.1

• Solus is at version 1.1 and therefore you expect a few small issues and I have had larger distributions such as Ubuntu hang on the odd occasion. I wouldn’t overly mark Solus down for the issues that have occurred.

• Where I would mark it down is that there isn’t enough software available in the repositories. I know this will improve over time but at the moment there just isn’t enough available to get by. This is made worse by the fact that Steam doesn’t work.

• The plus points are the good installer, the nice clean desktop environment and the fact that it does perform well.

• The upshot is that if you can get by with just a browser, an office suite and a few other applications then Solus will be fine for you but if you need more choice then it might be a bit early to adopt this distribution.

=> ↺ Sundays with Solus – #1 – March 6th 2016

=> ↺ Solus 1.1 Screencast and Screenshots

=> ↺ This Week in Solus – Install #23

=> ↺ Manjaro Deepin 16.03 is beautiful Arch Linux

• The Manjaro community is proud to announce a new stable release of the Deepin Edition.

Ballnux/SUSE

=> ↺ GNOME 3.20 to Hit the openSUSE Tumbleweed Linux Repositories by the End of March

• openSUSE’s Douglas DeMaio informs users of the openSUSE Tumbleweed rolling operating system about the latest updates pushed to the main repositories via snapshot builds.

=> ↺ Call for the Host of openSUSE.Asia Summit 2016

• The openSUSE.Asia organization committee is inviting proposals to host the openSUSE.Asia Summit during the later half of 2016 (July to the middle of October). The openSUSE.Asia Summit is the largest annual openSUSE conference in Asia and is attended by over 400 contributors, enthusiasts from all over Asia

• The event focuses primarily on the openSUSE distribution and its applications for personal and enterprise use. It brings together the openSUSE community in Asia to provide a forum for users, developers, foundation leaders, governments and businesses to discuss both the present technology and future developments.

Red Hat Family

=> ↺ Red Hat Director continued…

• Its been an interesting start to the year. Upcoming deployments are calling for the use of Liberty-based deployments so I have been looking at using Red Hat’s Director to deploy these. Because it’s basically a glorified Heat template (albeit an extremely complicated one), it’s ideal for customization for individual environments because no cloud is the same, right?

=> ↺ New in libguestfs: Filesystem forensics support

=> ↺ A couple of new ARM server hardware announcements

=> ↺ Gigabyte MP30-AR0: IPMI

=> ↺ Gigabyte MP30-AR0: RHEL running with ACPI

=> ↺ Think open organizations are chaotic? Think again

• Open organizations are much like a swarm in that they have an inherent hierarchy. To assume chaos only perpetuates the notion (or perhaps mythology) that systems other than “formal hierarchies” as we know them are without form/structure.

=> ↺ BMO Capital Markets Trims Red Hat Inc (RHT) Target Price to $90.00

=> ↺ Red Hat Inc (RHT) Shares Down 2.5% Following Analyst Downgrade

=> ↺ Red Hat Inc (RHT) Shares Sold by CIBC Asset Management Inc

=> ↺ Red Hat (RHT) – Analysts’ Weekly Ratings Changes

=> ↺ Red Hat Inc (RHT) Stock Price Down 2.5% on Analyst Downgrade

=> ↺ Red Hat Inc (RHT) Shares Sold by Sumitomo Mitsui Asset Management Company LTD

=> ↺ Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE:RHT) Analyst Rating & Update

=> ↺ How Risky Is Red Hat Inc Stock?

• Don’t judge a book by its cover, nor a hat by its glitzy brim. The Linux vendor is actually a safe value play in disguise.

Fedora

=> ↺ Fedora at FOSDEMFedora at FOSDEM

• Number of Fedora Contributors who attended FOSDEM 2016 : 76 out of which 19 were newcomers onboarded during the event.

=> ↺ Fedora or Ubuntu: what do you await more?

• There will be 2 major releases in the next couple of months.

• First, end of April 2016 will see the release of Ubuntu 16.04, the next Long Term Support release of Ubuntu, the distribution with an indisputable authority in the Linux world.

• Second, mid-May 2016 will bring us a new release of Fedora 24, another big name in the Linux world.

Debian Family

=> ↺ Apt-get and its irritating lack of easy selective upgrades

• One of my many irritations with apt-get is that it doesn’t easily allow you to only apply some of the pending updates. Sure, often you want to apply all of the updates (at least all of the unheld updates), but there are any number of cases where you want to be more selective. Sometimes you are in a rush and you want to apply only a few very urgent updates. Sometimes you want to apply updates in a specific order, updating some packages before others. Sometimes you want to apply most updates but temporarily exclude some that you consider low priority or disruptive.

=> ↺ Hewlett Packard Enterprise Platinum Sponsor of DebConf16

• HPE is also a development partner of Debian, and provides hardware for port development, Debian mirrors, and other Debian services (hardware donations are listed in the Debian machines page).

=> ↺ Debian Fun in February 2016

• Now that squeeze-lts is history I’d like to thank the Debian Security Team for their help and answers to all the questions related to security tracker, DSAs, DLAs and whatnot. I’m looking forward to wheezy-lts now…

=> ↺ Some impressions of a flourishing community – bits from the MiniDebConf Curitiba @ Montreal

• I was first contacted to talk about women participation in Debian, which I kindly refused, but I said I would maybe talk about motivating new contributors, possibly with some more friends that would maybe join me at the stage. I need to confess that at that moment I had no idea (ok, a vague idea…) about what I was going to talk. So I promptly emailed some Debian friends, shared the invitation, shared some thoughts, got feedbacks, got encouragement, and we finally made it!

=> ↺ More involved in the Debian Publicity team

• More than 6months since I am Debian Developer and I’m learning new things every day… and trying to organize my time better to accomplish all the things I would like to do.

Derivatives

Canonical/Ubuntu

=> ↺ Canonical Wants Your Feedback on Snappy and Snapcraft in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

• Renowned Ubuntu developer Daniel Holbach writes today, March 7, on the Snappy mailing list that he and his team wants your feedback on the Snappy and Snapcraft implementations in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS.

=> ↺ Ubuntu Touch Is Being Ported to Sony Xperia T2 Ultra Android Phones

• Ubuntu Community Manager Alan Pope teased users on Twitter with a photo of Canonical’s Ubuntu Touch mobile operating system running on a Sony Xperia T2 Ultra smartphone.

=> ↺ How to move the Ubuntu Unity panel to the bottom

• One of the biggest complaints about Ubuntu Unity is the lack of configuration. Yes, there is the Unity Tweak Tool (which can be installed from the standard repositories), but even with the amount of tweaks that app allows, it’s been missing one highly sought after option. That option…moving the Launcher to the bottom of the window.

=> ↺ Canonical Has Initial Support For Vulkan Running On Mir

=> ↺ Denver Post Pitches Canonical’s Ubuntu Linux Open Source OS

• Ubuntu and GNU/Linux got some good press recently from the Denver Post, which pitched the open source operating system as a healthy alternative to Windows and OS X on desktop computers.

• The article, written by Tamara Chuang, focused on PCs from System 76, one of a handful of companies that sells laptops and desktops with Ubuntu pre-installed. It described the Ubuntu experience in exceedingly positive terms.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ 96Boards SBC gains AOSP build from Linaro

• Linaro released Android Open Source Project code for the octacore HiKey SBC. This is Linaro’s first AOSP build that will be maintained within the AOSP common tree.

• ARM-backed Linaro, a collaborative engineering organization for developing open source ARM software, announced the new AOSP (Android Open Source Project) release for the 96Boards-compatible HiKey SBC at Linaro Connect in Bangkok. Linaro also announced an ARMv8 based Developer Cloud, a cloud-based native ARM development environment that can be used to design, develop, port, and test server, cloud, and IoT applications.

=> ↺ First “96Boards EE” SBC debuts with AMD ARM SoC

• LeMaker’s “Cello” is a $299, server-oriented single board computer with a quad-core Cortex-A57 AMD A1100 SoC and a 96Boards Enterprise Edition form factor.

• This first SBC to use 96Boards.org’s “96Boards Enterprise Edition” form-factor will soon arrive with a 64-bit, quad-core, ARM Cortex-A57 AMD Opteron A1100 system-on-chip. Now on pre-sale from Lenovator at $299, the Linux-supported LeMaker Cello joins other 96Boards SBCs like the now LeMaker-built, octa-core HiKey, Qualcomm’s quad-core DragonBoard 410c, and a new Actions Technologies Bubblegum-96 board that went on pre-sale in recent days, with shipments expected in Q2.

=> ↺ Embedded Linux workshop offers quick start guide

• This workshop will cover the four elements of Embedded Linux on which every project depends: toolchain, bootloader, kernel and root file system. The theory discussed will be backed up with a hands-on session using a BeagleBone Black development board

=> ↺ Thin Mini-ITX SBC runs Linux on Skylake, offers long lifecycle

• Congatec’s “Conga-IC170” is a Linux-ready thin Mini-ITX board with 6th Gen dual-core Intel Core CPUs, up to 32GB DDR4-2133, and a wide-range power supply.

=> ↺ Cello: new AArch64 enterprise board from 96boards project

• Few hours ago, somewhere in some hotel in Bangkok Linaro Connect has started. So during morning coffee I watched keynote and noticed that Jon Masters presented RHELSA 7.2 out of the box experience on Huskyboard. And then brand new board from 96boards project was announced: Cello.

Phones

Tizen

=> ↺ Tizen SDK 2.4 Rev 4 Released

• The Tizen Software Development Kit (SDK) 2.4 Rev 4 has been released, which is only a matter of weeks since 2.4 Rev 3 went public. This is an updated set of tools for developing Tizen Web and Native applications. You get access to an Integrated Development Environment (IDE), emulator, toolchain, sample code, and documentation.

Android

=> ↺ Marshmallow barely crawls past 2% adoption in March Android distribution numbers

=> ↺ Opera Mini’s built-in video compression finally hits Android

=> ↺ Sony Showcases Their Android 6.0 Software On YouTube

=> ↺ How to print from your Android phone or tablet with Google Cloud Print

=> ↺ AOSP Changelogs Posted For March’s 6.0.1 And 5.1.1 Security Updates

• The latest factory images for the Nexus family have landed and people are getting their updates. What are they updating to? The changelogs built from developer comments can probably answer that, or at least give some pretty good hints.

=> ↺ I Have A Theory About The Galaxy Note 6, Android N & Google’s ChromeOS

• The first rumour is related to Samsung’s patent, covered a few months back, that showed plans for a dummy-style laptop that is powered by an upcoming, but previously unannounced Galaxy Note phone. Like what Motorola tried AGES ago, but obviously MUCH better.

=> ↺ 10 do’s and don’ts for securing your Android device

• Afraid being mobile means being insecure? These Android security measures will give you some peace of mind.

=> ↺ Truecaller for Android lets you know if your contacts are free for a chat

=> ↺ Google patches remote-execution flaws in Android

=> ↺ Google squishes more critical Android bugs: Nexus, BB Priv patches ready

=> ↺ Android N Mockups Show Interface Screenshots With New System Settings: Here’s What It Could Look Like

=> ↺ Sophisticated banking malware targets Android users

=> ↺ Google fixes Android bugs, including lingering Mediaserver flaw

=> ↺ Facebook Messenger on Android gets a Google-inspired facelift

=> ↺ WhatsApp for Android Update Brings Revamped Settings Page

=> ↺ How to run Android apps in Windows – and Windows in Android

=> ↺ How to add nicknames to Android: Give your Google Contacts nicknames to make contacting them faster and more natural

=> ↺ Best new Android and iPhone games (March 1st – March 7th)

=> ↺ Opera Mini for Android Gets Video Boost, Save to SD Card, and More

• Opera has started rolling out an update for its Opera Mini for Android browser application. The highlight of the update is the new Video Boost feature. As the name suggests, the Video Boost feature would help Opera Mini users “see less of the video-buffering wheel,” the company said.

=> ↺ How to change the default search engine in Chrome for Android

=> ↺ Android 6.0 Marshmallow OTA Update Arrives For Global Sony Xperia Z5, Z3+, Z4 Tablet Users

=> ↺ Google splats more bad Android security bugs with patches your mobe will probably never see

=> ↺ Google patches remote execution flaws in Android

=> ↺ Five Smart Ways How You Can Boost Your Android Apps Revenue

=> ↺ Android Guru Rich Miner Joins Dialpad Board

=> ↺ New security solution protects Android apps throughout their lifecycle

=> ↺ BlackBerry Priv Receives March Android Security Patch

=> ↺ March’s Android Security Update Kicks Off Today With Factory Images (Updated)

=> ↺ “Accessibility Malware” puts 65% percent of old version Android devices at risk

=> ↺ 500 Million Android Devices Affected by ‘Accessibility Clickjacking’ Malware: Report

=> ↺ Google Nexus 7 (2013) under Verizon Receives Latest Android Security Update, Reported Getting Ready for Android N

=> ↺ Android N user interface screenshots leaked, tweaked settings menu revealed

=> ↺ Android 6.0 Marshmallow update for Xperia Z5 series smartphones begins global rollout

=> ↺ Digital Insight is First Solutions Provider to Introduce Android™ Fingerprint Authentication for Mobile Banking

=> ↺ Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge review: Still the best Android phone you can buy

• The Galaxy S7 Edge is a beautiful, functional phone which addresses virtually all of the shortcomings of its predecessors. However, you can’t please everyone, and there will be those who are annoyed at Samsung for not taking more risks with the design and for relying so heavily on the blueprints of the S6, although the same criticism could fairly be levelled at Apple.

• As ever, these kind of handsets don’t come cheaply. The 32GB Galaxy S7 Edge is priced at £639 – no pricing for the 64GB version is currently available – and the Galaxy S7 32GB version will cost £569.

Free Software/Open Source

=> ↺ ​Enterprise ready: OwnCloud 9 handles petabytes of data

• When you think of ownCloud, you think of a cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) cloud you can run off a home server. OwnCloud 9, which will be released tomorrow, March 8, is far more than that.

=> ↺ Still reeling, SourceForge looks to the future

• The SourceForge and Slashdot communities have had a much bumpier ride than the opendesktop.org communities over the years. I won’t go into detail about the ownership changes, but here’s the tl;dr: The founders of Slashdot, Rob ‘CmdrTaco’ Malda and Jeff Bates, sold the site in 1999, about two years after its launch, to Andover.net. Then in 2000, Andover.net merged with VA Linux, which changed its name to SourceForge, Inc. in 2007, and became Geeknet, Inc. 2009.

=> ↺ Open source security: know your code

=> ↺ FUD firm

• The adoption of open source is a good thing overall, leading to faster time-to-market and lower development costs. But if we are relying on open source so widely (and we are), we have an obligation as security professionals to understand what we’re deploying. Since 2014, more than 6,000 new vulnerabilities associated with open source have been disclosed. And the fact that the open source code you use today is free from vulnerabilities doesn’t mean that it will remain that way in the future.

=> ↺ Google vendor security review tool goes open source

• Google’s decided that the first-phase questionnaire it uses to vet vendors might be useful to the rest of the world.

• Until now an internal document, the Vendor Security Assessment Questionnaire (VSAQ) was created to help Mountain View cope with the huge number of vendor approaches it receives.

• The questionnaires help vendors describe their security posture to Google, so as to thin out the amount of stuff the Chocolate Factory has to let in the door for a presentation.

=> ↺ ownCloud 9.0 Released with Major Enhancements, Brings Federation to a New Level

• Today, March 8, 2016, ownCloud Inc. is proud to announce the release and immediate availability of ownCloud 9.0, the next major release of the self-hosting cloud server used by millions of people worldwide.

=> ↺ ownCloud 9.0 officially announced; innovative collaboration leads new features

=> ↺ Intel Appears To Be Rolling Out FSP 2.0 Blob

• A controversial point of Intel’s Coreboot support has been the FSP, or Firmware Support Package, which is needed for initializing the systems on all recent hardware generations. With the upcoming Apollo Lake it appears there is now a “FSP 2.0″, but still relies upon binary blobs.

=> ↺ OSI: Don’t Forget To Vote!

• With just a few days to go in our elections, here’s your gentle reminder to vote on who you would most like to see on the board of the OSI. You have until midnight PST on March 14th, 2016 to do so.

=> ↺ ownCloud 9.0 is a Must-Have Upgrade for the Popular Cloud Platform

=> ↺ OwnCloud 9.0 Released As Latest Version Of Open-Source Dropbox Alternative

=> ↺ 9.0 is the biggest ownCloud release so far

=> ↺ Non-Linux FOSS: CreateUserPkg

=> ↺ WSO2 Unveils a Lightweight Java Framework for Building Microservices

• “It started about a year ago, from zero to pretty much every single customer asking us: What is your strategy on microservices, and what is your strategy for container-based services?” noted Isabelle Mauny, who is the vice president of product management at WSO2.

• In effect, the customers were telling the middleware company,”That’s what we want to deploy,” Mauny said.

=> ↺ Amida Technology Solutions Releases Indaba, an Open Source Data Collaboration and Knowledge Management Tool

=> ↺ source code

=> ↺ Google opens up VSAQ security assessor to the open source community

• On Monday, the tech giant said the Vendor Security Assessment Questionnaire (VSAQ), a selection of self-adapting questionnaires, have been used in the past to help the firm assess the practices and risk related to hundreds of vendors and their security every year.

=> ↺ When selling a site means selling a community

• In January, the CEO of ownCloud, Frank Karlitschek, sold his network of more than 30 community sites. The same month, DHI Group, Inc. announced that it completed the sale of its Slashdot and SourceForge community-driven businesses to BIZX, LLC.

• In both cases, websites weren’t the only things changing virtual hands. Entire online communities transferred to new stewards.

Events

=> ↺ The Linux Foundation Announces Schedule & Keynote Lineup for ApacheCon

=> ↺ MicroEJ to Present Eclipse Edje Open Source IoT Project at EclipseCon

=> ↺ FOSDEM 2016: Event Report

• As a longtime FOSS advocate and conference-goer, I have woefully from afar followed the press and event coverage after FOSDEM for many years, wishing on my lucky stars that someday, I too might be able to attend this premier FOSS event in Europe. And this year, finally, I got the opportunity to not only attend, but to help organize the Distributions DevRoom. Devrooms are a sort of mini-track within the larger conference, and ours focused on the common problems that Linux distributions, packagers, and other developers working at grand-scale community collaboration have to face.

Web Browsers

Chrome

=> ↺ Chromium 49 packages address security issues; no more 32-bit binary plugins

• Chromium 49 was announced on the Google Chrome Releases blog. I needed some time to compile package for my ‘ktown’ repository containing the KDE Plasma 5 environment. In fact it took more time than anticipated because I had upgraded my QEMU from 1.2.0 to 2.5.0 and that had unepected side effects: it severely affected the performance of the host server (running Slackware64 13.37 and a 2.6.37.6 kernel) and decreased the Virtual Machine speed to almost half. And when the VM froze while I was compiling chromium in it, I had enough. I reverted to QEMU 1.2.0 and all is well again.

Mozilla

=> ↺ Mozilla Firefox 45.0 Now Available for Download, Linux GTK3 Integration Disabled

• Just a few minutes ago, Mozilla started seeding the binary and source packages of the Firefox 45.0 web browser on its FTP servers, allowing users to get a head start with upgrading before the official announcement gets out later today.

=> ↺ Mozilla Firefox 45 Now Available

=> ↺ State of Embedding in Gecko

• Following up from my last post, I’ve had some time to research and assess the current state of embedding Gecko. This post will serve as a (likely incomplete) assessment of where we are today, and what I think the sensible path forward would be. Please note that these are my personal opinions and not those of Mozilla. Mozilla are gracious enough to employ me, but I don’t yet get to decide on our direction.

• The TLDR; there are no first-class Gecko embedding solutions as of writing.

=> ↺ Embedding Gecko Into Other Apps Isn’t Pretty

=> ↺ Who knows what is going on at Mozilla?

=> ↺ Firefox 45 Will Remove Tab Groups, Get This Add-on to Continue Using the Feature

=> ↺ Firefox 45: Find out what is new

=> ↺ Mozilla Firefox 45 Now Available

=> ↺ Mozilla’s Servo Is Whooping The Other Browsers In Performance

• While the Rust-written Servo engine being developed by Mozilla is still experimental, Google’s Jake Archibald has done a performance comparison of Servo against other engines and the results are mighty impressive.

• While Archibald did these tests on OS X, the results are interesting enough to share with Phoronix readers. The test includes an animated background, transform, and border radius on 499 elements. His results?

SaaS/Big Data

=> ↺ OpenStack Mitaka Bug Smash – Nuremberg

=> ↺ MapR delivers support for containers, security

• With the general availability of its Converged Data Platform, MapR Technologies brings Hadoop together with Spark, Web-scale storage, NoSQL and streaming capabilities in a unified cluster designed to support next-generation big data applications.

Databases

=> ↺ How Postgres and Open Source Are Disrupting The Market for Database Management Systems

• Open source database management systems (OSDBMSs) have matured into viable alternatives to proprietary, commercial solutions. It comes as no surprise that OSDBMSs are not-so-subtly pushing proprietary solutions to the periphery.

Pseudo-/Semi-Open Source (Openwashing)

=> ↺ Microsoft Is Now Part Of The Eclipse Foundation

=> ↺ Microsoft integrates Visual Studio with open-source Eclipse IDE

=> ↺ Mixing FOSS and proprietary

• The most popular integrated development environments, Eclipse and Visual Studio, are coming together.

=> ↺ Is Microsoft About To Bring PowerShell To Linux?

• Recent moves by Microsoft came together in my head this morning as an interesting chain of events that seem to point towards a large event in my mind: PowerShell on Linux, possibly Open Sourced.

=> ↺ OneFold.io Advances Its Free, Open Source Software Stack for Mobile and IoT Analytics With Addition of Google BigQuery Support for MongoDB

BSD

=> ↺ LLVM 3.8 Officially Released

• While running late, the release of LLVM 3.8 and Clang 3.8 is now officially available.

• If you missed out on LLVM/Clang 3.8 features, see our feature overview. Aside from all the traditional compiler improvements, LLVM 3.8 is also exciting for AMDGPU users as being an important update for those using the AMD open-source Linux graphics driver stack.

=> ↺ Bitcoin Devs Could Learn a Lot from BSD

• There’s never been a whirlwind of politics surrounding an open source project on the scale that we see with Bitcoin. Alternative implementations are considered controversial on principle, and Core devs can’t propose a bug fix without being accused of manipulation on behalf of outside interests. However, BSD, another popular open source project, doesn’t seem to have these problems. Why not?

=> ↺ Proactive Security & (re)discovering OpenBSD

• OpenBSD — a security-focused & research-based Operating System — started auditing their source code tree in 1996. They combed their source code repository looking for bugs that could lead to security vulnerabilities. The results were hundreds of security bugs found & patched. Thankfully, some of those fixes made it to Linux, FreeBSD and NetBSD. Today, OpenBSD proudly boasts about 2 vulnerabilities in more than 10 years. Code auditing is still on-going !

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

=> ↺ Free Software Foundation submits comment to Copyright Office with over 1200 co-signers calling for end to DMCA anti-circumvention provisions

• The Copyright Office was seeking comments in response to a request from Congress to study the effects of the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provisions and the triennial exemptions process. The DMCA’s anti-circumvention provisions create legal penalties for the circumvention of technologies that restrict access to copyrighted works, known as Digital Restrictions Management (DRM). It further criminalizes the sharing of tools needed to avoid DRM. The DMCA also set up a system where activists, academics and researchers may request that certain uses be exempted from the anti-circumvention provisions. Every three years they may submit a request to the Copyright Office that the circumvention of a particular type of work be free from the DMCA’s penalties. Even when an exemption is granted, it expires three years later when the next round of the exemptions process begins, requiring repeated effort to maintain narrow exemptions.

Public Services/Government

=> ↺ Juha Saarinen: IT plans need open-source solutions

• Oh, and those open-source-based solutions work too. So well, in fact, that they can be used to build businesses and public services that run on top of them.

• By now there should be more than enough examples of successful, large-scale enterprise open-source solutions for our authorities to at least trial, rather than automatically tying themselves to proprietary software – and burning through enormous amounts of cash in return for nothing in the process.

=> ↺ Achieving IT independence through open-source

• The unwelcome possibility arose that we might have to purchase these expensive systems all over again in a few years, once support for the discontinued products ceased.

• In fact, this kind of dependence on a few large foreign software vendors is a common hazard in many industries.

• Fortunately, Kazi Farms group, the parent company of Deepto TV, also runs a software company called Sysnova which has helped our other businesses to run on free and open source software.

=> ↺ Millions saved by Spain’s eAdministration tool

• The SIR software is made available for free to all Spanish public administrations. They can download the software from the CTT repository.

Licensing

=> ↺ GPL Fun

• The other one is Canonical who have announced it plans to ship zfs with Ubuntu. An employee wrote in a confusing blog post “As we have already reached the conclusion, we are not interested in debating license compatibility, but of course welcome the opportunity to discuss the technology.” but in linking to differing opinions feels the need to highlight “please bear in mind that these are opinions.” The Software Freedom Conservancy wrote an post discussing why it was a derived work and why that’s illegal to distribute. And the SFLC’s Eben Moglen wrote another one which based on a link from Dustin’s blog is the opinion they are replying upon for thinking everything is ok. Eben’s blog post is fascinating and makes for page turning bed-time reading by going into exactly why it’s a derived work. It all depends on “literal interpretation of GPLv2’s system library exception” and that based on that

Openness/Sharing

Open Hardware

=> ↺ Tiny Open Source Robot

• We watched the video introduction for this little open source robot, and while we’re not 100% sure we want tiny glowing eyes watching us while we sleep, it does seem to be a nice little platform for hacking. The robot is a side project of [Matthew], who’s studying for a degree in Information Science.

=> ↺ TAU Open Source Mini Arduino Zero Development Board Unveiled (video)

• Arduino enthusiasts that are looking for a smaller Arduino Zero board for their next project may be interested in a new piece of hardware called the TAU that has been developed by Rabid Prototypes and which has been equipped with an Atmel ATSAMD21E17A ARM Cortex M0+ micro controller and offers 16KB RAM.

• The TAU has been created to provide an affordable open source miniature version of the large Arduino Zero and offers 32-bit ARM processor running at 48MHz and can be easily programmed using the Arduino IDE.

Leftovers

=> ↺ Internet Archive brings hundreds of classic Apple II games to your web browser

• The Internet Archive has been on a roll lately, bringing back classic MS-DOS games, Windows 3.1 software, and even defanged versions of old PC viruses.

• Now, the site has hit a milestone with its Apple II collection: A group of anonymous hackers have successfully broken the elaborate copy-protection schemes on more than 500 classic games and programs. The result is that these Apple II classics are now playable directly in modern web browsers.

=> ↺ Retro Apple II software lands at the Internet Archive

• DIGITAL HOARDER the Internet Archive has unleashed a load of previously copy-protected Apple II software from their old floppy prisons and added them to its accessible shelves.

• This is great news for people who like to have a go on things that they used to have a go on in the 1980s and 1990s. You could be in the Apple Computer software library now, running riot and making merry with all the stuff that the 4am Group has found, stored and shared with you. There is a lot of it.

• “Among the tens of thousands of computer programs now emulated in the browser at the Internet Archive, a long-growing special collection has hit a milestone: the 4am Collection is now past 500 available Apple II programs preserved for the first time,” said the Internet Archive in a blog post.

=> ↺ These Drone Photos Show the Density of High-Rises in Hong Kong

• Hong Kong is a densely populated city where high-rises are crammed close together and where an estimated 100,000+ people live in 40-square-foot cubicle apartments. Photographer Andy Yeung used a drone to capture this density for his project Urban Jungle.

• The photo above of the Sheung Wan area of the city was selected as a 500px.com Editors’ Choice.

Science

=> ↺ The End of Journals

• From the Section of Cardiovascular Medicine and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars Program, Department of Internal Medicine, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT; Department of Health Policy and Management, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, CT; and Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation, Yale-New Haven Hospital, New Haven, CT.

=> ↺ 8 guidelines to advance women in tech on International Women’s Day

• Just in time for International Women’s Day, the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)’s Luskin Center for Innovation has released “Rethinking Public, Private and Nonprofit Strategies to Advance Women in Technology,” a 60-page report that articulates just how far the tech industry still needs to go to address its gap in gender diversity – and how it can get there.

=> ↺ Guy Who Pretends He Invented Email Whines At Every Journalist For Writing Obit Of Guy Who Actually Helped Create Email

• Over the years, we’ve written a few times about Shiva Ayyadurai, a guy who’s basically staked his entire life on the misleading to false claim that he “invented” email. Every couple of years he pops up again as he’s able to fool some reporters into believing him. In 2012, he fooled the Washington Post and, astoundingly, the Smithsonian. In 2014, he was somehow able to get the Huffington Post to publish a multi-part series claiming he had “invented” email — though after we called them out on it (and after they stood by it) — those stories were eventually deleted. Ayyadurai also threatened to sue us for calling out his false claims, but there’s been no lawsuit yet.

Hardware

=> ↺ Heat doesn’t kill hard drives. Here’s what does

• “Free-cooled” datacenters use ambient outside air instead of air conditioning. That lets us see how environment affects system components. Biggest surprise: temperature is not the disk drive killing monster we thought. Here’s what is.

Health/Nutrition

=> ↺ Two Billion People Eat Insects and You Can Too

• Edible insects have long been a part of the human diet and are commonly consumed as a food source in many regions of the world, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). It is estimated that two billion people currently consume insects as part of their diets. Insects may be an increasingly important source of protein because of the rising cost of animal protein, food insecurity, environmental pressures, climate change and population growth.

=> ↺ WHO: Zika Virus Spreading, R&D Needs Financing, Sample Sharing Discussed

• The World Health Organization said today that evidence of the relationship between the Zika virus and neonatal malformations and neurological disorders is growing stronger, and that the virus is spreading geographically. The Emergency Committee set up by the WHO at a gathering today issued advice to the WHO director general, including warning pregnant women to avoid travelling to Zika infected countries. Meanwhile, discussions are ongoing on the sharing of the samples of the virus, and on the question of benefit-sharing. And a call was made for research and development to intensify.

Security

=> ↺ Tuesday’s security updates

=> ↺ Security advisories for Monday

=> ↺ Mac and Linux banking malware could soon be here thanks to efforts by Brazilian crime gangs

=> ↺ New Mac ransomware was ported from Linux

=> ↺ Let’s Encrypt has issued its first million certificates

=> ↺ Let’s Encrypt reaches one million certificate encryption milestone

• On Tuesday morning, the Let’s Encrypt free Certificate Authority (CA), operated by the Internet Security Research Group (ISRG), said in a blog post that only three months and five days since launching a beta version of the service, one million webmasters have opted for the free Transport Layer Security (TLS) certificates.

=> ↺ Making the Internet Safer, One Secure Site at a Time: Let’s Encrypt Hits 1 Million Certificates

• Let’s Encrypt today issued its one millionth free certificate (at 9:04am GMT to be exact), just about 100 days after it released its beta version of the service. This is a major accomplishment for the group, but also big news for the web and the security of everyone online.

• In the past three months, our online activities and web traffic have become much safer and better protected through the efforts of Let’s Encrypt, an open source project that is hosted by The Linux Foundation and supported by organizations like Mozilla, Cisco, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Facebook, and Google Chrome.

=> ↺ Google and Dell Open-Source Two Security Tools

=> ↺ Google offers app to help companies assess their vendors’ security

• Google has published an interactive questionnaire that companies can use to assess the security practices of their suppliers or to review and improve their own security programs.

• The Vendor Security Assessment Questionnaire (VSAQ) is a Web-based application and was released under an open-source license on GitHub. It contains a collection of questionnaires that Google itself uses to review multiple aspects of a vendor’s security.

=> ↺ Google Opens Up Collection of Vendor Security Assessment Questionnaires

• Google is continuing its rapid pace of open source contributions this year. As we’ve covered, the company recently opened up some powerful and interesting machine learning tools. It is open sourcing a program called TensorFlow that is based on the same internal toolset that Google has spent years developing to support its AI software and other predictive and analytics programs. You can find out more about TensorFlow at its site, and you might be surprised to learn that it is the engine behind several Google tools you may already use, including Google Photos and the speech recognition found in the Google app.

=> ↺ Free honeypot tool launched at RSA 2016 to help network admins

=> ↺ Dell develops open-source honeypot

• Dell SecureWorks researchers created an open source honeypot to help network administrators catch and monitor attackers.

• The tool is called DCEPT (Domain Controller Enticing Password Tripwire) and is a tripwire-style intrusion detection system for Active Directory (AD), Dell security researchers Joe Stewart and James Bettke said in a March 2 blog post.

=> ↺ Linux Mint Devs Finally Decide to Change the Website’s Password Policies

=> ↺ Linux Mint updates password policy after getting hacked and failing its users

• Linux Mint is a good operating system. The problem, however, is that it really doesn’t need to exist. Mint is based on Ubuntu, which is a wonderful OS on its own. Ultimately, the biggest reason for Mint’s existence is the Cinnamon desktop environment, and that is certainly no reason for an entirely new OS. One of the things keeping Linux behind on the desktop is the sheer number of unnecessary distributions, such as Mint, but I digress.

• When Linux Mint forums and ISOs were compromised, many of its users felt betrayed. After all, Linux is supposed to be safe and secure — this hack was a major blemish to the community overall. Of course, this is unfair — the kernel was not hacked, only Mint’s servers. Today, as a reactionary response to the hack, Mint is changing password policies.

=> ↺ WordPress: Got Plugins? (4 Plugins you need to check)

• Thanks to a wordfence blog post, we have a fuller understanding of a previously disclosed backdoored official plugin ( CCTM ) and 3 more plugins which within the last week or so have been publicly disclosed and patched.

Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

=> ↺ Exclusive: Navy Secretly Conducting Electromagnetic Warfare Training on Washington Roads

• Without public notification of any kind, the US Navy has secretly been conducting electromagnetic warfare testing and training on public roads in western Washington State for more than five years.

• An email thread between the Navy and the US Forest Service between 2010 and 2012, recently obtained via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by Oregon-based author and activist Carol Van Strum in November 2014, revealed that the Navy has likely been driving mobile electromagnetic warfare emitters and conducting electromagnetic warfare training in the Olympic National Forest and on public roads on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula since 2010.

=> ↺ Drone Casualty Report Promised as U.S. Airstrike Kills 150 Al Shabaab Members

• AFTER YEARS OF INTENSE SECRECY, the Obama administration on Monday announced that it will for the first time acknowledge the number of people it has killed in drone strikes outside of conventional war zones, including civilians. The report, administration officials said, will be released “in the coming weeks,” and will continue to be released annually. The news came as the Pentagon confirmed that it had carried one of the largest airstrikes in the history of the war on terror.

• Lisa Monaco, the president’s counterterrorism and homeland security adviser, described the plan in comments made during a talk at the Council on Foreign Relations. “We know that not only is greater transparency the right thing to do, it is the best way to maintain the legitimacy of our counterterrorism actions and the broad support of our allies,” Monaco said, adding that the operations described in the report would not cover areas of “active hostilities,” such as Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria.

=> ↺ The Noxious Legacy of Fracking King Aubrey McClendon

• WHEN FRACKING BILLIONAIRE Aubrey McClendon died after crashing his Chevy Tahoe into a bridge last week, the federal investigation into his alleged bid-rigging came to an end. At his memorial in Oklahoma City today, his friends and family will remember him as a “swashbuckling innovator” and a loyal friend, but his most enduring legacy may be his role in convincing policymakers and the public that natural gas could be an environmental boon and a solution to global warming. More than any other individual, McClendon personified the excesses of the fracking boom, gobbling up land so quickly and spinning the boom’s story so effectively that regulators, environmentalists, and even Wall Street struggled to keep pace.

• McClendon was not only the founder of Chesapeake Energy, the most important fracking company in the technique’s history, but he also co-founded one of the gas industry’s most important lobbying arms, America’s Natural Gas Alliance. In creating both, McClendon became an architect of the energy market’s reorientation around a product whose climate-warming emissions rival those of coal.

=> ↺ Finding Security by Helping the ‘South’

• Official Washington’s new group think is that more money must be poured into the Military-Industrial Complex to continue wars in the Middle East and hem in Russia and China on their borders. But the real security threats come from mass dislocations in the Third World, says ex-CIA official Graham E. Fuller.

=> ↺ Saudi Arabia’s Exploding Christmas Gifts From Hillary Clinton

• As Hillary Clinton emerges as the front-runner for the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, she is receiving increased scrutiny for her years as Secretary of State. Many are criticizing her hawkish foreign policy, which is the best indication of what President Hillary’s foreign policy would be, with many focusing on her long relationship with Saudi Arabia.

• On Christmas Eve in 2011, Hillary Clinton and her closest aides celebrated a $29.4 billion sale of over 80 F-15 fighter jets, manufactured by US-based Boeing Corporation, to Saudi Arabia. In a chain of enthusiastic emails, an aide exclaimed that it was “not a bad Christmas present.”

• These are the very fighter jets the Saudis have been using to intervene in the internal affairs of Yemen since March 2015. A year later, at least 2,800 Yemeni civilians have been killed, mostly by airstrikes – and there is no end in sight. The indiscriminate Saudi strikes have killed journalists and ambulance drivers. They have hit the Chamber of Commerce, facilities supported by Médecins Sans Frontières (also known as Doctors Without Borders), a wedding hall, and a center for the blind. The attacks have also targeted ancient heritage sites in Yemen. International human rights organizations are saying that the Saudi-led strikes on Yemen may amount to war crimes.

Transparency Reporting

=> ↺ Former paid agent of Swedish Security Police dictated Amnesty Sweden’s stance against Assange

• Svenska Dagbladet (Svd), one of Sweden’s leading newspapers, has now revealed that a well-known journalist and ‘left activist’ – who, among other things, exerted considerable influence with Amnesty International Sweden – was a paid agent of Sweden’s Security Police (SÄPO). [5]

• The government security agent, Martin Fredriksson, was mainly active during the years that former Foreign Minister Carl Bildt was dictating Sweden’s foreign policy, when the “Assange Affair” was widely publicized on the home page of Sweden’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. According to statements Fredriksson posted on Twitter, his “work” at SÄPO covered different periods between 2004 and 2010, the year Sweden opened its ‘investigation’ against the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

• The Swedish media establishment awarded this SÄPO secret agent its highest investigative journalism prize, ‘Guldspaden’ (Golden Spade), in 2014. The rationale on which the award was given to Fredriksson referred precisely to the work he had implemented as a paid agent of Sweden’s Secret Police. [6] In the photo below, at the centre of the group, the ex-Security Police agent Martin Fredriksson.

=> ↺ Last chance for a pro-transparency trade legacy for Obama

• As the presidential campaign heats up, President Obama continues to press forward with his policy agenda. High on his remaining “to do” list is his trade agenda. With less than a year left in office, President Obama continues to urge Congress to approve the landmark Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) while pressing forward on an ambitious trade deal with Europe, the Transatlantic Trade Partnership (TTIP). For the moment, according to Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), it appears the votes aren’t there for TPP approval. Central to the challenge is a problem of the administration’s own making.

=> ↺ Two Former White House Tech Advisors Tell The President To Actually Be Transparent About Trade Deals

• Two former Obama tech staffers — Professor Colleen Chien (who advised the administration on intellectual property issues) and Quentin Palfrey (who worked for years in the Commerce Dept and the Office of Science and Technology Policy on intellectual property issues) — have written a fantastic opinion piece for The Hill, arguing that the White House has one last chance to actually be transparent in trade negotiations as it moves forward with the TTIP agreement with the EU. The piece notes that part of the reason that the TPP agreement is in so much trouble was its secrecy…

Environment/Energy/Wildlife

=> ↺ You’re Running Out of Time to See One of Nature’s Most Spectacular Sites

• If you have ever been snorkeling in a tropical paradise and seen the psychedelic colors and teeming variety of otherworldly sea critters, you were gazing upon something increasingly rare: a healthy coral reef. That site also does a lot more than dazzle vacationers. Coral reefs occupy just 0.1 percent of the oceans’ bottom but provide habitat to a quarter of the world’s fish species. They also prevent erosion along coastlines and buffer the impact of storms, providing protection, food, and livelihoods for about 500 million people.

=> ↺ On Fracking, Clinton And Sanders Give Vastly Different Answers

• Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders gave vastly different answers on fracking at the CNN Democratic debate on Sunday, illustrating a key policy contrast between the two.

• The candidates were asked by University of Michigan student Sarah Bellaire about whether they support fracking, the controversial process of injecting high-pressure water, sand, and chemicals underground to crack shale rock and let gas flow out more easily. Clinton, who answered first, said she does — but only under certain conditions.

• Specifically, Clinton said that she would not support fracking when local communities don’t want it; when it causes pollution; and when fracking companies don’t disclose the chemicals they use.

Finance

=> ↺ Corporate Sovereignty Now So Toxic, For Once It Isn’t Being Used Against Canada — Yet

• Despite that painful track record, in 2014 Canada signed the Foreign Investor Protection Agreement (FIPA) with China, which not only included corporate sovereignty provisions, but guaranteed that they would take precedence over the Canadian constitution for 31 years. However, it seems that something — maybe the decision by TransCanada to sue the US for $15 billion because of President Obama’s rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline — has started to make people aware of ISDS’s dangers. That, at least, is what a blog post on the Canadian Dogwood Initiative suggests. It’s a story about a Chinese mining company filing a lawsuit against Canada’s provincial government in British Columbia (BC) over a land transfer.

=> ↺ The Financial System Is A Larger Threat Than Terrorism

• In the 21st century Americans have been distracted by the hyper-expensive “war on terror.” Trillions of dollars have been added to the taxpayers’ burden and many billions of dollars in profits to the military/security complex in order to combat insignificant foreign “threats,” such as the Taliban, that remain undefeated after 15 years. All this time the financial system, working hand-in-hand with policymakers, has done more damage to Americans than terrorists could possibly inflict.

PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

=> ↺ Hillary Is Now Picking and Choosing Which Obama Accomplishments to Take Credit For

• According to Hillary Clinton’s latest campaign ploy, she deserves credit for domestic policies passed under Obama — notably, ObamaCare — but not issues — in this case, trade deals — she negotiated as Secretary of State.

• She rolled out former Governor and erstwhile Michigan resident Jennifer Granholm (when this story hit, some local folks were talking about how Granholm hasn’t been seen in these parts of late) to claim that Hillary can’t be held responsible for NAFTA — which she supported when it got passed by her spouse (who is, of course, a key campaign surrogate) — or for the Trans-Pacific Partnership — which she helped negotiate as Secretary of State. It’s the latter I find particularly remarkable.

=> ↺ Tim Cook, Larry Page, And Elon Musk Plan To Stop Donald Trump At A Secretive Meeting

• The top leaders from Silicon Valley and Republican Commiserate recently met at the American Enterprise Institute’s annual World Forum gathering. Apparently, meeting’s main agenda was “How to stop Republican front-runner Donald Trump?”

=> ↺ At Secretive Meeting, Tech CEOs And Top Republicans Commiserate, Plot To Stop Trump

• Billionaires, tech CEOs and top members of the Republican establishment flew to a private island resort off the coast of Georgia this weekend for the American Enterprise Institute’s annual World Forum, according to sources familiar with the secretive gathering.

• The main topic at the closed-to-the-press confab? How to stop Republican front-runner Donald Trump.

=> ↺ Michigan mayor says he was nearly kicked out of Dem debate

• Fouts, an Independent mayor who attended both the Republican and Democratic debates in his home state, commented on the noticeable differences between the two events.

• “The Democratic debate is totally controlled by Hillarys [sic] good friend DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz,” Fouts wrote in a Facebook post. “No commentary is allowed by the audience. Particularly if you are cheering Bernie Sanders. Persons who do not adhere to Hillarys [sic] rules are threatened with expulsion.”

• He also said the Democratic Party’s debate process “borders on totalitarian control” and in an interview on Monday, he said Wasserman Schultz should resign.

• This is not the first time fellow Democrats have been publicly critical of Wasserman Schultz and how she’s handled the party’s debates. Critics have accused the DNC chairwoman of limiting the number of debates in order to aid Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.

=> ↺ An LSD trip story: “Went to a Donald Trump speech on acid SUPER BAD VIBES”

• It may be fact, it may be fiction. We do not know. But this first-hand account of an unfortunate fellow who fell under the delusion that it would be a good idea to attend a campaign rally for GOP presidential candidate and noted racist shitbag Donald Trump while tripping balls–it’s a very good acid trip story.

=> ↺ Donald Trump’s Sworn Testimony About His University: “I Don’t Know the People”

• Trump University, a now-defunct sales ploy that promised to teach Donald Trump’s real estate “secrets” to enrollees and make them rich in the process, has become a flashpoint in the Republican presidential primary debates. In last night’s debate in Detroit, for instance, Sen. Marco Rubio lit into Donald Trump over the “handpicked” instructors. Trump retorted with a fabrication, claiming that the Better Business Bureau had given Trump University an A rating. As Rubio pointed out in the exchange, the most recent rating was a D minus.

Censorship

=> ↺ 1,845 Cases Filed For ‘Insulting’ Turkish President In Just 18 Months

• Erdogan, when he was Prime Minister, also sued his own government for failing to shut down or block accounts on Twitter that were saying things about him that he disliked.

• And the stories keep on coming about prosecutions for “insulting” Erdogan. The most insane one started making news a few weeks ago, when a Turkish man filed a complaint against his own wife for apparently insulting Erdogan in their home.

=> ↺ No More Drama: China’s TV Insiders Lash Out at Censorship During Legislative Gathering

• The Chinese public is mourning the government’s recent tightening of restrictions on TV content — and so are several of the country’s most famous TV professionals, who are voicing their frustration during China’s annual legislative meetings in Beijing.

• Zhang Guoli, one of China’s best-known actors and producers, said Monday that he and his peers had started to back away from making TV dramas due to increased government restrictions.

=> ↺ AG begs for time over ‘censorship’ law

• State Prosecutors wants more time to file their statement of case in respect of the suit filed at the Supreme Court by the Ghana Independent Broadcasters Association (GIBA) over a new media content law by the National Media Commission (NMC).

• According to Grace Ewoo, a state Attorney, the A-G had filed a notice for extension of time to enable it file its statement of case.

• She explained that the state had filed their affidavit in respect of the matter on February 24, this year.

=> ↺ Nigeria: CJN Backs Social Media Censorship Bill

=> ↺ CJN backs Frivolous Petition Bill

=> ↺ Anti-social media bill splits online campaigners

=> ↺ AGF, CJN disagree over social media bill

=> ↺ CJN, AGF differ on anti-social media bill

=> ↺ CJN, AGF Disagree Over Anti-Social Media Bill

=> ↺ Chief Justice Of Nigeria Supports Social Media Repression Bill During Public Forum

=> ↺ Law Reform Commission, ministry, others kick against Frivolous Petition Bill

=> ↺ Nigerian ministry rejects divisive social media bill

=> ↺ Read what the Chief justice of Nigeria said about the frivolous petition bill

=> ↺ Nigeria: Stakeholders Urged to Reject Anti-Media Bill

=> ↺ Nigeria: Reject Anti-Social Media Bill, FOI Coalition Tells Stakeholders

=> ↺ Nigeria’s Social Media Bill is back, and it’s time to drop this dangerous legislation once and for all

=> ↺ Reject anti-media bill, FOI coalition urges Nigerians

=> ↺ Chinese magazine challenges government over censorship

=> ↺ Chinese Publication, Censored by Government, Exposes Article’s Removal

=> ↺ Advisers to China’s Communist Party are openly criticizing Xi Jinping’s crackdown on free speech

=> ↺ Caixin removes article on free speech following speech on free expression

• News magazine Caixin has had an article about a call for free speech at the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference removed from its Chinese-language website, Caixin reported on its English-language website. Jiang Hong, a delegate to China’s political advisory body from Guangdong, had said in an article that advisers should be free to give the ruling Communist Party and government agencies suggestions on a variety of socioeconomic and political issues.

=> ↺ USDA Urged to Reform Scientific Integrity Policy After Allegations of Scientific Censorship

• As scrutiny of censorship of federal scientists has grown — including a feature in Sunday’s The Washington Post Magazine — a coalition of more than 50 sustainable agriculture, environmental, beekeeper and public-interest organizations is once again pressing the agency for overdue reforms. The coalition sent a follow-up letter to the U.S. Department of Agriculture today expressing growing concerns over the alleged suppression, harassment and censorship of agency scientists, particularly with regard to research showing harms to pollinators from certain pesticides — a controversial topic in the agriculture community. As a result the groups are urging the Department of Agriculture to publicly investigate these allegations and make immediate binding reforms to the agency’s scientific integrity policy.

=> ↺ Facebook suspends Frack Nation page after complaints by pro-censorship environmentalists

• Facebook continues to show its lack of respect for freedom of speech by removing the page of the pro-fracking documentary Frack Nation.

• As The Blaze reports, the movie’s page was removed for 24 hours after environmentalists issued a series of complaints, denying that the group was telling the truth about fracking.

=> ↺ The State of Free Expression Online in Southeast Asia

• Threats to free expression are again on the rise all over the world. As a recent TechCrunch piece outlines, these threats are being felt acutely in Southeast Asia, an ethnically, politically, and linguistically diverse region which includes, Brunei, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor-Leste, and Vietnam. Taken as a whole, the region has nearly twice the population of US, with over 600 million inhabitants. Recent statistics estimate there are currently more than 160 million Internet users, and with the rise of affordable cellular data plans, tech infrastructure investment and competition amongst carriers, this number is sure to rise dramatically by 2020.

• Unfortunately, the region is no stranger to Internet censorship. In 2007, Myanmar became one of the first countries in the world to shut down access to the Internet during protests. Thailand has for many years blocked access to a range of political websites, often under their lèse-majesté laws. Defamation prosecutions against critics of the military junta and King are common. Meanwhile, the region’s more sparsely-populated countries—like Cambodia and the ironically-named Lao People’s Democratic Republic—carefully monitor what their citizens are doing and saying online.

Privacy

=> ↺ Verizon racks up $1.35M fine for violating consumer privacy

• On Monday, the Federal Communications Commission said it had reached a deal with Verizon over the company’s use of a technology that allowed marketers to track customers’ web browsing so they could provide more targeted advertising. The so-called supercookies were hidden bits of code that couldn’t be easily erased when consumers cleared their browsing history.

=> ↺ Victory: Verizon Will Stop Tagging Customers for Tracking Without Consent

• Today, Verizon reached an agreement with the FCC to acquire affirmative consent before injecting their UIDH tracking header into their customers’ web activity on non-Verizon owned sites. This is exactly what we asked them to do in November 2014, and is a huge win for Internet privacy. ISPs are trusted carriers of our communications. They should be supporting individuals’ privacy rights, not undermining them.

• Verizon started their tracking header program in 2012, but did not describe the program in its privacy policy at that time. In 2014, EFF analyzed the header and warned that it acted as an undeletable supercookie, bypassing typical steps people take to protect their Internet privacy, like deleting cookies or using browser extensions that block unwanted tracking.

=> ↺ Punished for a Paradox: Brazil’s Random Detention of Facebook Executive Fails Justice

• Yesterday, Diego Dzodan, Facebook’s Vice President for Latin America, was arrested at his Sao Paolo home by federal police, escorted to a forensic institute and then held at Pinheiros Provisional Detention Center in the city. His arrest was ordered by Judge Marcel Montalvão, who was been demanding personal data from WhatsApp as part of a drug-related investigation in Brazil’s northeastern state of Sergipe. The arrest comes after the judge had begun serving WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, a series of fines for withholding information from the court.

• Davi Tangerino, WhatsApp’s lawyer, told reporters what he told the court: WhatsApp can’t provide the contents of the communications, because the company has no record of those communications. That may be for technological reasons—many WhatsApp communications are end-to-end encrypted. It may also be result of the companies own logging policies: WhatsApp says it makes no permanent record of the data that the court requires. In either case, the court is punishing a single employee for the court’s own impossible demands.

=> ↺ Broadband Industry ‘Studies’ Claim Users Don’t Need Privacy Protections Because ISPs Are Just Harmless, Innovative Sweethearts

• With few protections in play, most of the last decade broadband ISPs have collected any and every shred of data about their customers’ online behavior. It began with clickstream data, which ISPs sold to third parties, then either refused to comment on or outright lied about. Since then, more intelligent network hardware has let ISPs use deep packet inspection to track and monetize user online behavior down to the second. In wireless, carriers like AT&T and Verizon not only collect and sell user online behavior and location data, but now embed stealth packet headers to track and profile users across the entire Internet.

• It was that last decision that raised eyebrows at the FCC, prompting the agency recently to consider whether it should use its new Title II authority to build at least some basic rules of the road regarding broadband user privacy. This has, of course made the broadband industry rather nervous. After all, the telecom industry has grown very comfortable with the fact that nobody has bothered to give half a damn about broadband privacy for the better part of a generation.

=> ↺ Amid an Inconclusive Answer on Encryption, Hillary Reveals She Doesn’t Understand How Metadata Works

• Right in the middle, however, Hillary reveals not understanding a key part of this controversy. To the extent Syed Rizwan Farook used the Apple software on his work phone to communicate with accomplices, we know who he communicated with, because we have that metadata (as Admiral Mike Rogers recently confirmed). We just don’t know what he said.

• We wouldn’t necessarily know who he talked to if he used an App for which metadata was more transient, like Signal. But if so, that’s not an Apple problem.

• Moreover, if ISIS recruits are — as Hillary said — smart, then they definitely wouldn’t (and in fact generally don’t) use Apple products, because they’d know that would make their communications easily accessible under the PRISM or USA Freedom programs.

• This response is not really any different from what we’re getting from other to Obama officials. But it does come with some indication of the misunderstandings about the problem before us.

=> ↺ EFF Opposes McCaul-Warner Encryption Commission

• Senator Mark Warner and Representative Mike McCaul are calling on Congress to create an “Encryption Commission” composed of business, tech, and law enforcement and intelligence agency leaders that will investigate and report on encryption issues. The commission is set to ask questions already answered in the 1990s like whether or not the government should mandate backdoors or otherwise change current law. The answer is no. At the end of the day, the commission shows Congress still hasn’t learned that math is not something you can convince to compromise.

• The Warner-McCaul Commission tasks Senate and House leaders with appointing 16 representatives from private industry, law enforcement, academia, the privacy and civil liberties community, and the intelligence community to publish two reports within a year. Each report will investigate (among other topics) how encryption is used, if current law or warrant procedures should change, the value of encryption, the effects of encryption on law enforcement, and the costs of weakening encryption standards.

=> ↺ Of Cockpits And Phone Encryption: Tradeoffs And Probabilities

• Blake Ross (boy genius Firefox founder and later Facebook product guy) has written a somewhat bizarre and meandering — but totally worth reading — article about the whole Apple v. FBI fight, entitled (believe it or not): Mr. Fart’s Favorite Colors. There are a few very good points in there, about the nature of programming, security and the government (some of which even make that title make sense). But I’m going to skip over the farts and colors and even his really excellent description of the ridiculousness of TSA security theater in airports, and leap forward to a key point raised in the article, focused on airplane security, which presents a really good analogy for the iPhone encryption fight. He points out that the only thing that has truly helped stop another 9/11-style plane hijacking (as Bruce Schneier points out repeatedly) is not the TSA security theater, but reinforced, locked cockpit doors that make it impossible for people in the cabin to get into the cockpit.

=> ↺ FBI makes clandestine changes to rules governing access to NSA data

• A secret court accepted changes to the rules governing the FBI’s access to NSA data about US citizen’s international emails and phone activity. The Guardian received confirmation from US officials that the classified changes were made to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa).

• The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Group (PCLOB) has previously revealed that the FBI was able to search through NSA’s collection of trawled data about international communication. The classified nature of the latest changes mean it is impossible to know exactly what they entail, but they are described as being a step towards “enhancing privacy”.

=> ↺ FBI adopts new rules for accessing NSA data: report

• New policies adopted by the FBI reportedly affect the bureau’s access to intelligence gathered by the National Security Agency on U.S. citizens, but officials say they’re barred from explaining since the changes are classified.

• The Guardian newspaper reported on Tuesday that the FBI has “quietly revised” its privacy rules with respect to how it searches NSA databases for phone records, email information and other metadata concerning Americans.

• Specifically, the changes are said to involve the way the FBI uses Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the federal law that allows the U.S. intelligence community to collect information regarding non-U.S. persons.

=> ↺ FBI quietly changes its privacy rules for accessing NSA data on Americans

• The FBI has quietly revised its privacy rules for searching data involving Americans’ international communications that was collected by the National Security Agency, US officials have confirmed to the Guardian.

• The classified revisions were accepted by the secret US court that governs surveillance, during its annual recertification of the agencies’ broad surveillance powers. The new rules affect a set of powers colloquially known as Section 702, the portion of the law that authorizes the NSA’s sweeping “Prism” program to collect internet data. Section 702 falls under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa), and is a provision set to expire later this year.

• A government civil liberties watchdog, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Group (PCLOB), alluded to the change in its recent overview of ongoing surveillance practices.

=> ↺ Sweden re-evaluates eID needs and requirements

• The Swedish government is re-evaluating its approach to electronic identification tools. A report will be submitted at the end of the month, summarising the changing needs and requirements of public administrations, compared to the available private sector solutions.

• For their eGovernment services, Swedish public administrations commonly rent private sector eID solutions under a country-wide framework agreement signed in 2008. This contract will end this summer, which is why Sweden is studying the alternatives.

=> ↺ DOJ To NY Court: Hey, Can We Have Another Judge Look Over That Ruling About Breaking Into iPhones?

• This is hardly a big surprise, but the Justice Department is not at all happy about NY magistrate judge James Orenstein’s decision last week in the case against accused drug trafficker Jun Feng, that it cannot force Apple to break the security on an iPhone using the All Writs Act. While so much of the attention concerning iPhone encryption has been placed on the case in San Bernardino, the NY case made news well before the California case, and Orenstein was clearly aware that his ruling would have a much wider impact (and it was clearly written with that intent in mind). The Justice Department, of course, is now, in effect asking for a second opinion on the issue, carefully trying to position this case as something quite different than the San Bernardino case. In particular, the Justice Department is claiming that since this particular iPhone is using iOS 7, rather than 8, Apple already has a backdoor, and can easily unlock the contents of the phone.

• [...]

• As we’ve noted, that’s not actually true. The earlier orders involved earlier versions of iPhones where Apple did have easy access to opening up those phones — and the San Bernardino case was different because it used a more modern version of the operating system, where it did not have such access.

=> ↺ Amazon will restore Fire OS‘ encryption support in the spring

=> ↺ Amazon Decides to Re-Encrypt Fire OS Mobile Device Data for Privacy

=> ↺ Hacker Shows How To Hack Anyone’s Facebook Account

=> ↺ The technology at the heart of the Apple-FBI debate, explained

=> ↺ Apple Fight Could Lead To “Virtually Limitless” Surveillance Powers, Judge Warns

=> ↺ Deep Dive: Why Forcing Apple to Write and Sign Code Violates the First Amendment

=> ↺ British Spy Agency Chief Says Tech Companies Should Be Able to Provide a Way Around Encryption

=> ↺ GCHQ’s Robert Hannigan: Leave internet privacy laws to politicians, not tech companies

=> ↺ GCHQ chief urges Government action over data encryption

• The head of GCHQ has called for politicians to set out the boundaries on the use of data as he called for greater co-operation between technology companies and spy agencies over the issues of encryption.

=> ↺ Why is GCHQ boss encouraging activists and journalists to use the Tor network?

=> ↺ Britain’s GCHQ seeks co-operation from tech firms to facilitate State surveillance

=> ↺ GCHQ: Government Should Have Final Say on Encryption, Not Tech Firms

=> ↺ GCHQ boss: Tech needs ‘new relationship’ with security services

=> ↺ Head of Britain tech security agency backs encryption

=> ↺ GCHQ director says Tor is a ‘brilliant invention’

=> ↺ GCHQ: Crypto’s great, we’re your mate, don’t be like that and hate

=> ↺ GCHQ boss denies Snooper’s Charter will weaken encryption

=> ↺ GCHQ director: Tech companies ‘routinely’ help law enforcement

=> ↺ British Spy Agency Chief Says Tech Companies Should Provide a Way Around Encryption

=> ↺ The head of GCHQ wants a ‘new relationship’ with tech companies

=> ↺ GCHQ director: Tor is a ‘brilliant invention’ that highlights the perils of encryption

=> ↺ UK Spy Chief Says Tech Companies Need to Work With Government on Encryption

=> ↺ GCHQ: US and UK tech firms need to work together to solve encryption challenges

=> ↺ Privacy fight risks letting terrorists in, says head of GCHQ

=> ↺ UK’s head of GCHQ seeks co-operation with tech groups

=> ↺ Welcome common sense on encryption

=> ↺ GCHQ chief urges Government action over data encryption

=> ↺ UK spy chief calls for tech sector co-operation to combat “abuse of encryption”

=> ↺ GCHQ uses MIT speech to get chummy with tech industry over crypto backdoors

• GCHQ’s director, Robert Hannigan, used a speech he gave yesterday at MIT to try to cosy up to the tech industry in order to promote what he called “a constructive dialogue.” That’s a dramatic reversal of his position less than 18 months ago, when he wrote in the Financial Times that Internet companies were “command-and-control networks of choice for terrorists and criminals,” and “in denial” about it.

• On Monday, Hannigan admitted that his comments in the FT had caused “a bigger stir than I expected, and were widely seen as an attack on the tech industry.” Now, he said, “we recognise that we need a new relationship between the tech sector, academia, civil society and Government agencies. We should be bridging the divide, sharing ideas and building a constructive dialogue in a less highly-charged atmosphere.”

• Encryption is the key area where Hannigan believes that dialogue is needed, and he devoted most of his speech to the topic. “The idea that we do not favour strong encryption is alien to anyone who has worked in my organisation,” he said, and went on to emphasise: “I am not in favour of banning encryption. Nor am I asking for mandatory backdoors.”

=> ↺ Some impressions from the TorDevMeeting and the Internet Freedom Festival (IFF) in Valencia

• Overheard at the Tor Dev meeting in Valencia, from people speaking about online identities: “You were on top of the list of the people I thought were you.”

=> ↺ Advanced Tor Browser Fingerprinting

• The ability to privately communicate through the internet is very important for dissidents living under authoritary regimes, activists and basically everyone concerned about internet privacy.

• While the TOR network itself provides a good level of privacy, making difficult or even practically impossible to discover the real I.P. address of the tor users, this is by no means enough to protect users privacy on the web. When browsing the web, your identity can be discovered using browser exploits, cookies, browser history, browser plugins, etc.

• Tor browser is a firefox browser preconfigured and modified to protect user privacy and identity while browsing the web using TOR. Browser plugins are disabled, history and cache aren’t persistent and everything is erased after closing the browser, etc.

Civil Rights

=> ↺ In blow to inmates’ families, court halts new prison phone rate caps

• Prison phone companies today were granted a judicial stay that halts implementation of new, lower rate caps on inmate calls. The court did not halt new limits on certain ancillary fees related to inmate calls, though, so the overall price of prison calling should go down.

• Global Tel*Link (GTL) and Securus Technologies had asked the US Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia to stay new price regulations until a lawsuit against the Federal Communications Commission is decided, arguing that they have a high likelihood of prevailing in the case. The companies argue that the FCC overstepped its authority and that the new limits fall short of what prison phone companies are contractually obligated to pay in “site commissions” to correctional facilities. Despite protest from the FCC, the court today partially granted the stay request.

=> ↺ DOM Defense Department Seeks SUB Hackers, Tech Companies For Partnership Built On Distrust

• Despite these limitations, Defense Secretary Ash Carter thinks the program will be a success. He believes the DoD and whatever hackers actually make it past the vetting process will “enhance national security” by playing controlled cyberwar games in a controlled environment.

=> ↺ International Women’s Day

• On a lighter note, it is also rather charming that International Women’s Day, designed by Communists as a rather heavy handed propaganda vehicle, morphed through the actions and desires of ordinary human beings into a celebration of romance. Throughout the Eastern Bloc, International Women’s Day became indistinguishable from the Western practices of Valentine’s Day, only with the gifts and flowers and dining taken to even higher levels of corniness. Restaurants throughout the UK will be busy today as couples involving at least one partner from our brilliant new large Eastern European population go out to celebrate. Including us.

=> ↺ Read Bernie Sanders’ 1961 Testimony on His University’s Racist Housing Policy

• On the campaign trail, Sen. Bernie Sanders often mentions his work as a civil rights activist in the early 1960s, when he was a campus organizer for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). As a leader of the University of Chicago chapter, he led sit-ins to protest racial discrimination at university-owned properties and picketed a Howard Johnson’s restaurant.

• Now we know a little bit more. L.E.J. Rachell, a researcher with the CORE Project, which is dedicated to collecting and preserving the records of CORE, recently uploaded four documents offering more details about Sanders’ involvement with the group. During this period in 1961, UChicago’s CORE chapter was sending white and black volunteers to university-owned housing facilities in the neighborhood to determine if the school was honoring its anti-discrimination policy.

• The most interesting of the CORE Project documents is a testimonial written by Sanders himself. In it, he details a “test” he conducted of a hotel just off campus. He visited to see if it would rent a room to his older brother, Larry, and the clerk assured him that they would. When UChicago CORE finished its testing, the results were clear—rooms that were available to white students were not available to black students. The next year they launched a series of sit-ins to force the university’s hand.

=> ↺ What Do Children’s Doctors and Nuns Have in Common? They Both Support Women’s Access to Contraception.

• The premiere pediatric association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the National Coalition of American Nuns are among a diverse group of organizations and individuals who recently filed friend-of-the-court briefs in the latest Supreme Court challenge to the Affordable Care Act’s contraception requirement. Nearly 30 briefs were filed in support of the federal government’s argument that women are legally entitled to insurance coverage for contraception coverage with no co-pay, regardless of their employer’s religious beliefs.

=> ↺ Harvard Law School Wants to Remove Slaveholder’s Crest From Logo

• After months of student protests, Harvard Law School could soon stop using its official symbol, a shield based on the crest of an 18th-century slaveholder whose donation paid for the first professorship of law at the university.

• In a letter to the university’s president and fellows released on Friday, the dean of the law school, Martha L. Minow, argued that the time had come to dissociate the school from the legacy of Isaac Royall, who left Harvard part of a fortune acquired through the labor of slaves at his father’s sugar plantation in Antigua.

• Every year, the dean wrote, she welcomes new students with a discussion of the benefactor’s portrait in which she notes “that while Harvard University at that time acted legally in accepting the gift, it is crucial that we never confine ourselves to solely what is currently lawful, for the great evil of slavery happened within the confines of the law.”

Internet/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ ICANN Meeting In Marrakesh: More Hiccups On Way To IANA Transition

• The 55th meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in Marrakesh this week is expected to finalise the last proposal necessary for the transition of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), a set of core functions necessary for the running of the internet.

• [...]

• Sharply criticising the transition proposal, Ismailov said it appeared that ICANN would remain a US corporation and the functions of the NTIA would just be resolved within the ICANN procedures, and be totally laid on US ground. “We hope that will be a temporary situation,” he said, adding concerns about “internal contradictions” in the US, pointing to recent letters from Republican Presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz.

DRM

=> ↺ For Netflix, Discontent Over Blocked VPNs Is Boiling

• In January, Netflix announced it would begin blocking a popular tech workaround known as a VPN, or virtual private network, that allowed customers beyond the US to access the same shows and films as American audiences. But as Netflix has aggressively pursued an ever-bigger global audience, simmering unhappiness over the ban is reaching a boil. An online petition demanding that Netflix change its policy has more than 36,000 signatures. And a new survey reveals that the crackdown may lead to piracy.

=> ↺ Apple Must Pay $450 Million In E-book Conspiracy, Relief Appeal Rejected By Supreme Court

Intellectual Monopolies

=> ↺ UN Global Dialogue On Innovation And Access To Medicines This Week

• The United Nations Secretary General’s High-Level Panel on Access to Medicines is holding a global dialogue this month, attended by governments, civil society, industry and academia, to discuss potential solutions to promote innovation and at the same time increase access to medicines. The first public dialogue session is this week, on 10 March in London.

• The High-Level Panel was established in November. In December, the panel issued a call for contributions to address the issue of alignment of the rights of inventors, and international human rights laws, trade rules and public health (IPW, Public Health, 1 February 2016).

Copyrights

=> ↺ Perfect 10 and the RIAA Still Trying to Rewrite Copyright to Give Hollywood A Veto Right Over Innovation: EFF Files Brief In Support of Giganews and Sound Copyright Policy

• Some people just never learn. For decades, porn purveyor Perfect 10 has been fighting a losing battle to deputize service providers to police potentially infringing uses of its works. Indeed, at this point Perfect 10 spends far more time on litigation than creation. But court after court has rejected those efforts. In fact, Perfect 10′s main achievement in the courts has been to inadvertently make good copyright law. For example, its litigation led to key decisions ruling that an image search engine was fair use and confirming that rightsholders must follow DMCA Section 512′s clear rules for takedown notices.

=> ↺ Author Sues Google For Copyright Infringement For Copying His ‘Philosophy’ In A TV Ad

• Yeah, by now, we get it. The legacy copyright folks have spent decades beating into the minds of the public that every idea and concept and philosophy is “owned” and that you need to get permission for just about everything that it’s no surprise to see crazy, nutty copyright lawsuits pop up every here and there. At least, usually, the really nutty ones are filed pro se (i.e., without a lawyer) and quickly dumped. However, it’s doubly amazing when you get a lawsuit that feels like a pro se lawsuit, but is actually filed by a real lawyer. In this case, the lawyer is Joel D. Peterson, whose website lists “intellectual property” as one of his specialties. If that’s the case, he may want to demand a refund from his law school.

=> ↺ Dutch Govt Denies Blame For Movie Piracy Losses

• The Dutch Government has no intention of compensating local film companies for the piracy losses they have allegedly suffered. A coalition of filmmakers is demanding 1.2 billion euros in piracy damages claiming that the Government failed to deter illegal downloading, but the Dutch Minister of Justice denies any liability.

=> ↺ “Disgusted” Member of Parliament Intervenes in Internet Piracy Case

• A Member of Parliament has intervened after an 83-year-old grandmother was accused of illegally downloading the Robert Redford movie The Company You Keep and hit with a demand for £600. Ian Austin MP has called on the UK Business Secretary to safeguard consumers from copyright trolls and will also raise the matter in Parliament.

=> ↺ Google Asked to Remove 100,000 ‘Pirate Links’ Every Hour

• Copyright holders are continuing to increase the number of pirate links they want Google to remove from its search results, which have now reached a record-breaking 100,000 reported URLs per hour. This remarkable milestone is more than double the number of pirated links that were reported around the same time last year.

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