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● 03.28.16

● Links 28/3/2016: BQ Aquaris M10, VoCore

Posted in News Roundup at 4:10 pm by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

Desktop

=> ↺ TOOS Plummets. GNU/Linux Thrives.

• Hmmm… The death of the GNU/Linux desktop appears to be premature. Gaming in GNU/Linux is growing rapidly. So is use of GNU/Linux for creating software.

Server

=> ↺ A Peek At Upcoming Open Source Enhancements In IBM i

• It’s hard to quantify the value created through open source development of software. Last year, the Linux Foundation released a white paper that found the total value of the development of the Linux operating system amounted to $5 billion. In 2013, IBM itself committed to donating $1 billion in cold hard cash to further development of Linux and other open source projects. When one considers that nearly all of the cutting-edge IT work being done in distributed computing (i.e., the worlds of Hadoop, Spark, Kafka, and NoSQL databases) involves open sharing of source code–mostly through the Apache Software Foundation–then the humongous value that open source brings comes into view.

=> ↺ Healthcare Tech Trends Shape Industry And IBM i

=> ↺ Video: Shifter – Containers in HPC environments

Kernel Space

=> ↺ Kernel 4.6 RC1 Has Been Released

=> ↺ Windows-Compatible ReactOS Is Getting ReiserFS Support

=> ↺ The Linux Foundation’s Automotive Grade Linux

• You couldn’t ask for a better segue than this, from Smith’s book about the pitfalls of automotive security to our community’s solution to them—that is, The Linux Foundation’s Automotive Grade Linux (AGL) new Unified Code Base (UCB) distribution. AGL is a Linux Foundation Workgroup dedicated to creating open-source software solutions for automotive applications. AGL’s UCB distribution is a collaborative open-source project developing a common, Linux-based software stack for the connected car. Leveraging the best software components from AGL and other existing open-source projects, such as Tizen and GENIVI Alliance, UCB enables development of in-vehicle-infotainment systems while allowing different profiles to be created from the same code base to address all applications in the car, such as instrument cluster, heads-up display, telematics and connected car. UCB is based on the Yocto Project and offers a complete embedded-Linux development environment with tools, metadata and documentation. AGL’s members make up a who’s who of the automotive, IT and electronics industries, including Toyota, Ford, Intel, Sony, Linaro, Wind River and scores of others.

Graphics Stack

=> ↺ ATI_fragment_shader Is Now Supported By All Gallium3D Drivers

=> ↺ Gallium3D Is Getting Closer To Support NIR As An Alternate IR

Benchmarks

=> ↺ The NVIDIA GTX 900 Series Performance On The Open-Source Nouveau Driver

• With the in-development Linux 4.6 kernel there is the long-awaited NVIDIA GeForce GTX 900 series accelerated support atop the open-source Nouveau driver. While it requires using NVIDIA’s signed binary blobs for the firmware, the support is now working. Here are some benchmarks on several different GTX 900 Maxwell graphics cards comparing the open-source driver performance to what’s offered by NVIDIA’s proprietary Linux driver.

• If you are curious about setting up the Nouveau driver stack for a GeForce GTX 900 “Maxwell” graphics card, see the article I wrote a few days ago about It’s Easy Now Getting GeForce GTX 900 Graphics Cards Running On Open-Source Nouveau. Atop an Intel Xeon system running Ubuntu 16.04 x86_64, I was using Mesa 11.3-devel (built against LLVM 3.8, using the Oibaf PPA), xf86-video-nouveau 1.0.12, and a Linux 4.5 Git kernel following the DRM-Next merger. The NVIDIA firmware blobs were obtained from linux-firmware Git. The same system with the same set of graphics cards were then compared to the results when using NVIDIA’s latest proprietary driver release, the NVIDIA 364.12 driver.

Applications

=> ↺ Calamares 2.2 is out

• The Calamares team is happy to announce the immediate availability of Calamares 2.2, a feature release that brings many incremental improvements over Calamares 2.1.

• Calamares is a distribution-independent system installer, with an advanced partitioning feature for both manual and automated partitioning operations. It is the first installer with an automated “Replace Partition” option, which makes it easy to reuse a partition over and over for distribution testing. Calamares is designed to be customizable by distribution maintainers without need for cumbersome patching, thanks to third party branding and external modules support.

=> ↺ Calamares 2.2 Distribution-Independent Installer Out Now, Supports NVMe SSDs

• The Calamares distribution-independent graphical installer used in various operating systems, including Manjaro Linux, Sabayon, and many others, has been updated to version 2.2.

=> ↺ SystemTap 3.0 Released With New Features

=> ↺ systemtap 3.0 release

• The SystemTap team announces release 3.0!

=> ↺ Nmap 7.11 (Network Mapper And Port Scanner) Has Been Released

=> ↺ MKVToolNix 9.0.0 (Tool for Manipulating Matroska mkv Multimedia Files) Brings Changes

=> ↺ Copy And CudaDrive Storage Services To Discontinue, Backup Your Data ASAP

• Recently I wrote about 5 free alternatives to Google drive on Linux and I mentioned 5 interesting cloud storage services. When I was searching the web for some more interesting services, I got to know that Copy, one of the popular cloud services, has been planned to be discontinued in May this year. Because Copy has great number of Linux users so it’s a big point to notify all you Linux users who use Copy to backup your data as soon as possible.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ Kernel Interrupt Overview

=> ↺ Miscellaneous Monday quickies: manipulating and excising pages from pdfs

=> ↺ type safe multi-OS Propellor

=> ↺ Who can +2 a patch?

=> ↺ 10 ‘rm’ command examples for beginners

=> ↺ Free Krita tutorials out every week on GDquest

=> ↺ A quick look at the git object store

=> ↺ How to set up NFS server and client on CentOS 7

=> ↺ 14 tail and head commands in Linux/Unix

=> ↺ Generating dynamic Python tests using metaclasses

=> ↺ Build documentation sites with Pintail

=> ↺ How To Install Zen Cart On CentOS 7 Linux

Games

=> ↺ Two Worlds 3 in development, Two Worlds 2 comes to Linux/SteamOS

• Two Worlds 3 is in development, Topware Interactive has announced, and its 2010 RPG Two Worlds 2 will be getting an engine update – as well as some new DLC.

=> ↺ The next alpha for the open source RTS 0 A.D. is coming soon, some highlights included

=> ↺ Looks like Shadow of Mordor has bad graphical bugs with Nvidia 364.12

• I am still using the 358 driver series myself, as it seems the 355 series doesn’t work on Ubuntu 16.04.

=> ↺ Zombasite, the interesting action RPG from Soldak now has a demo

• Zombasite is the rather unimaginative titled action RPG from Soldak that’s surprisingly good gameplay wise, and now you can try before you buy.

=> ↺ 7 Days to Die alpha 14 released, Linux graphics broken again

• One day I will be able to write something nice about 7 Days to Die, but today is not that day. The developers have released 7 Days to Die alpha 14 and shown they still aren’t testing the Linux builds.

=> ↺ The Community Has Already Taken To Experimenting With Vulkan Game Engines

=> ↺ Some HD videos of the Vulkan GDC sessions are now online

=> ↺ Tomb Raider coming to Linux, Vulkan support added Wine, and more gaming news

• Hello, open gaming fans! In this week’s edition we take a look at what’s new in the world of Linux gaming.

=> ↺ Warsow 2.1 First-Person Shooter Game Released for Easter with Many Changes

• Easter is being celebrated in different parts of the world, and the developers of the free and open-source Warsow first-person shooter have announced the release of version 2.1.

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

=> ↺ KDE Plasma 5.6 Released – Here’s What’s New

• KDE Plasma 5.6 the latest version of KDE Desktop environment has been officially released and announcement by KDE development team.

GNOME Desktop/GTK

=> ↺ GNOME 3.22 Schedule Published This Week

• With GNOME 3.20 having been released this week, developers working on the desktop stack have already firmed up their release schedule for the next six-month update, GNOME 3.22.

• Via the GNOME Wiki, the release schedule was for GNOME 3.22 was ratified earlier in the week. The date most people care about for GNOME 3.22 is 22 September, the planned release date of GNOME 3.22.0. Though, of course, it’s no big surprise considering the release usually lands right around that time considering their release cadence.

=> ↺ Meld 3.15.2 Diff and Merge App Released with GTK+ 3.20 and XDG-App Support, More

• Now that the GNOME 3.20 desktop environment has been released with updates to most of its core apps and components, the time has come for associated projects to be updated as well to support the latest technologies implemented in GNOME 3.20.

Distributions

=> ↺ Stali distribution smashes assumptions about Linux

• Stali, which is built with statically linked binaries for speed and compactness, upends traditional ideas about how a Linux distribution should work

New Releases

=> ↺ Budgie Desktop 10.2.5 Lands with a Multitude of Refinements, It’s Now Stateless

• Just a few moments ago, March 27, 2016, Josh Strobl from the Solus Project had the great pleasure of announcing the release and immediate availability of Budgie Desktop 10.2.5.

=> ↺ PinguyOS 14.04.4-1 & Pinguy Builder Update

• I have updated the Pinguy Builder so it now has full support for UEFI on 32-bit distros. This includes off-line install of the UEFI Grub. Version 4.* has beta support for 16.04. This is still very much a work in progress.

• Because of the update and people having issues with off-line install with Pinguy OS, I have updated and repackaged all the ISOs with the new Pinguy Builder. So if you had issues installing in the past, this is now all fixed.

PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandriva Family

=> ↺ Mageia 6 Linux Enters Development, Brings KDE Plasma 5.6 and GNOME 3.20 Desktops

• A few minutes ago, March 27, 2016, the development team of the Mageia project announced the release and immediate availability for download and testing of the first devel version of the upcoming Mageia 6 Linux operating system.

=> ↺ PCLinuxOS 2016.03 “MATE”

• PCLinuxOS is a rolling release distribution which was originally forked from Mandriva. Though its roots are in Mandriva, PCLinuxOS is currently maintained as an independent distribution. The project is unusual in two regards. First, PCLinuxOS has a relatively conservative approach for a rolling release distribution. PCLinuxOS maintains desktops with classic layouts, still uses the SysV init software while most Linux-based systems have moved to systemd, and PCLinuxOS tends to have a stronger emphasis on stability than other distributions which employ the rolling release model. The second feature that sets PCLinuxOS apart is that it uses RPM packages with Debian’s APT package management tools, an uncommon combination.

=> ↺ Good things come to those who wait… Mageia 6 dev1 is here.

• After the delays caused by upgrading the major parts of the base system and switching to the Plasma 5 Desktop Environment, we are very happy to announce that the first development milestone of Mageia 6 has been released and is ready for testing by the community.

• Note that only the classical ISO images have been released, those being the i586 and x86_64 DVD images. The live ISO images are not quite ready. If the live images can be made functional soon, they may also be released, otherwise they will come with the next milestone release.

Gentoo Family

=> ↺ Gentoo-Based Sabayon 16.04 Linux Brings Kernel 4.4.6 LTS and AMD Crimson 15.12

• The Sabayon Linux rolling release operating system based on the powerful Gentoo distro has just been updated today, March 28, for the month of April 2016, and new ISO images are now available for download.

Arch Family

=> ↺ Arch Linux Users Urged to Update to Pacman 5.0.1 Before April 23, 2016

• Allan McRae of the Arch Linux project made a brief announcement at the end of last week to inform users of the acclaimed GNU/Linux operating system about some important changes in the default package manager.

=> ↺ Arch users: update pacman soon

• The release of pacman-5.0 brought support for transactional hooks. These will allow us to (e.g.) run font cache updates a single time during an update rather than after each font package installation. This will both speed up the update process, but also reduce packaging burden for the Developers and Trusted Users.

Red Hat Family

=> ↺ Red Hat Inc (RHT) Stock Rating Reaffirmed by Deutsche Bank

• Red Hat Inc (NYSE:RHT)‘s stock had its “buy” rating reaffirmed by equities researchers at Deutsche Bank in a research report issued to clients and investors on Thursday, Marketbeat.com reports.

=> ↺ Robert W. Baird Raises Red Hat Inc (RHT) Price Target to $85.00

• Red Hat Inc (NYSE:RHT) had its price objective upped by Robert W. Baird from $80.00 to $85.00 in a report issued on Wednesday morning, MarketBeat.Com reports. They currently have an outperform rating on the open-source software company’s stock.

=> ↺ Red Hat’s Open-Source Success Points to Other Investing Options

• Common sense dictates that making open-source software, where the original code can be modified by anyone and freely distributed, doesn’t seem like a sound business decision. After all, competitors could freely use code to create products. The success of Red Hat Software (RHT – Get Report) proves otherwise.

=> ↺ Red Hat (RHT) Short Interest Disclosure

• Red Hat (NYSE:RHT) stated loss of 589,108 shares or 10.5% in the short interest. The short interest registered from 5,584,864 on February 29,2016 to 4,995,756 on March 15,2016. In terms of floated shares, the shorted positions stood at 2.8%. The stock has been averaging 1,499,267 shares daily in trading and would need 3 days to cover the shorts. The information was released by Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Inc (FINRA) on March 24th.

=> ↺ What Is The Growth Score For Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE:RHT)?

• Zacks Research has assigned an affirmative Growth Style Score to Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE:RHT). The Growth Score considers both the company financials and the growth outlook of a company. It is arrived at by analyzing multiple company financials like Cash Flow Statement and Income Statement and a ranking in a range of A to F is provided. The ‘A’ rating illustrates that the stock has immense growth potential to perform relatively better than the market.

=> ↺ Shares of Red Hat (NYSE:RHT) Sees Large Inflow of Net Money Flow

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

=> ↺ Stock Grabbing Investor’s Attention: Red Hat, Inc. (RHT)

=> ↺ Quantitative Investment Management LLC Purchases New Position in Red Hat Inc (RHT)

=> ↺ Red Hat’s Open-Source Success Points to Other Investing Options

=> ↺ Red Hat Inc (NYSE:RHT): Can it Maintain the Trend?

=> ↺ Red Hat Inc (RHT) Shares Sold by FOURPOINTS Investment Managers SAS

=> ↺ Red Hat Inc (RHT) Stock Rating Reaffirmed by JPMorgan Chase & Co.

=> ↺ Red Hat’s (RHT) “Hold” Rating Reiterated at Jefferies Group

=> ↺ Red Hat Inc (RHT) Stock Rating Reaffirmed by Oppenheimer

=> ↺ Red Hat Inc (RHT) Rating Reiterated by Robert W. Baird

=> ↺ Voya Investment Management Lowers stake in Red Hat Inc (RHT)

=> ↺ How Red Hat, Inc. Keeps the Good Times Rolling — Regardless of Sector Headwinds

• The Linux vendor keeps growing while sector rivals like Microsoft and Oracle pin their slowdowns on economic trends.

Fedora

=> ↺ Fedora Linux Is Looking To Become More Modular

• A new working group is being formed that’s focused on making Fedora more modular and to define a base module from which new derivatives of Fedora can be constructed.

=> ↺ Fedora’s Rawhide Nodebug Kernel Is Now On Linux 4.6

• Here are some tests of Fedora 23, Fedora 23 with all available stable release updates that currently takes it to Linux 4.4 and Mesa 11.1, along with enabling the Fedora Rawhide Nodebug repository where an early Git snapshot of Linux 4.6 is present.

=> ↺ Translation Test Day tomorrow, Tuesday 2016-03-29!

• Hey folks! Sorry for the short notice, but once again it’s time for a Fedora Test Day! Tomorrow, 2016-03-29, will be Translation Test Day over in #fedora-test-day on Freenode IRC. Fedora’s dedicated g11n (globalization) team is working hard as always to get translation and internationalization in shape for the Fedora 24 release, so please do stop by and help out if you can. If you speak any language other than English, you can help out by checking the translations of some key apps in other languages!

Debian Family

=> ↺ Debian Project Leader elections 2016

• It’s that time of year again for the Debian Project: the elections of its Project Leader!

• Neil McGovern who has held the office for the last year will not be seeking reelection. Debian Developers will have to choose between voting for the only candidate running Mehdi Dogguy or None Of The Above. If None Of The Above wins the election then the election procedure is repeated, many times if necessary.

• Mehdi Dogguy was a candidate for the DPL position last year, finishing second with a close amount of votes to the winner Neil McGovern.

=> ↺ It’s Looking Like Debian 9.0 Stretch Won’t Support OwnCloud

• It’s looking incredibly likely that ownCloud, the popular open-source project for easily setting up your own private cloud for file storage, will not be available as Debian packages with next year’s 9.0 Stretch release.

• The past few weeks have seen Debian stakeholders debating over ownCloud as an unfit upstream with it being a pain to maintain the current ownCloud Debian packages. Due to the unwillingness of the ownCloud developers, managing ownCloud upgrades being a headache, and Debian packaging rules, it’s looking like the Debian developers maintaining these packages are getting ready to throw in the towel for Stretch. Of course, others are wanting ownCloud to continue to be packaged since there is no viable open-source alternative to this project.

=> ↺ exim4 stable update – testing requested

Derivatives

=> ↺ AV Linux 2016 Officially Released, a Debian OS Optimized for Audio Production

• It looks like the AV Linux 2016 operating system for audio production has been released this past weekend, bringing a whole new set of tools and open-source software for low-latency audio production.

Canonical/Ubuntu

=> ↺ The First Ubuntu Tablet, BQ Aquaris M10, Is Available for Pre-Order Now

• We reported this month that Canonical, the company behind the popular Ubuntu Linux, and BQ, the Spanish mobile manufacturer, teased users with the availability for pre-order of the first-ever Ubuntu tablet, the BQ Aquaris M10 Ubuntu Edition.

• The tablet is usually sold via BQ’s online store in two variants, Aquaris M10 HD and Aquaris M10 Full HD, with the Android 5.1 Lollipop mobile operating system, but thanks to the collaboration between Canonical and BQ, the Ubuntu community can now purchase it with the latest Ubuntu Touch mobile OS.

=> ↺ The world’s first Ubuntu tablet opens preorders, converging PCs and mobile devices

=> ↺ Pre-order the first Ubuntu Linux tablet

=> ↺ World’s First Ubuntu Tablet is Available to Pre-Order

=> ↺ The First Ubuntu Tablet — The BQ Aquaris M10 — Is Here

=> ↺ Aquaris M10 Ubuntu Edition hits pre-order: $289 tablet and desktop rolled into one

=> ↺ BQ Aquarius M10 Ubuntu Edition Linux tablet now available for pre-order

=> ↺ BQ Aquaris M10 prices start at €249 as pre-orders begin

=> ↺ BQ Aquaris M10, First Ubuntu Tablet Available For Pre-Order

=> ↺ First Ubuntu tablet to support convergence (desktop or tablet UI) now available for pre-order

=> ↺ Pre-order BQ’s Aquaris M10, an Ubuntu tablet and desktop rolled into one

=> ↺ The Aquaris M10 Ubuntu Tablet Now Available For Pre-Order

Flavours and Variants

=> ↺ Xubuntu 16.04 LTS and Lubuntu 16.04 LTS Get Their Final Betas, Download Now

• As we reported last week, the final Beta of the upcoming Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) operating system was announced, and it also included the Beta 2 builds for several official flavors.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ VoCore: A Cheap And Coin-sized Linux Computer With Wi-Fi

• VoCore is an open hardware that runs OpenWRT Linux. This tiny computer comes with Wi-Fi, USB, 20+ GPIOs that will help you to make a smart home automation system or use it in other embedded projects. Read more to know about this device and grab one for yourself.

=> ↺ group test: Raspberry Pi Robots

• The human race has a certain love affair with robots. From the early days of film we have The Day The Earth Stood Still where an ominous robot named Gort protected his master. Moving forward to the 1970s and 1980s we have the loveable C-3PO, R2-D2 and a certain war machine turned pacifist called Johnny 5. In those early days we would dream of owning a robot that could do our bidding, as long as your bidding did not violate Isaac Asimov’s three laws of robotics.

• Building a robots can be an incredibly personal project, from choosing the components to giving the robot a name. Each robot is unique and loved by its maker, and with the Raspberry Pi enabling anyone to build a robot it has never been easier to get started with robotics. There are many different robots on the market, from cheap and cheerful kits that retail for around £30, up to large sophisticated projects such as the Rapiro, which retail for many hundreds of pounds. Choosing the right robot can be a difficult task and that is where kits such as those in our group test can really help get you off to a flying start.

=> ↺ Limitless Linux projects await with VoCore’s Mini Linux Computer

=> ↺ Become a Linux wiz with VoCore mini computer, learning bundle [DEALS]

=> ↺ Deal: 13% off a VoCore mini Linux computer

=> ↺ VoCore: Mini Linux Computer opens up DIY tech building – for only $39

=> ↺ 11 Top Free Raspberry Pi Publications

• The Raspberry Pi is an inexpensive computer that has become the most popular device for smaller computing projects and learning. Sales have surpassed 8 million units making it the best selling UK personal computer.

Phones

Tizen

=> ↺ Samsung Z1 updated to Tizen 2.4 in India – version Z130HDDU0CPC4

Android

=> ↺ Android “microG” aims to cut out Google (sort of)

=> ↺ Android cameras to be able to search what they see, according to rumor

=> ↺ Xposed module aims to bring Android N features to devices running Lollipop or higher

=> ↺ Android Bitcoin Users Beware – Stagefright Metaphor Code Released On GitHub

=> ↺ Verizon Android Phones Now Come With eBay

=> ↺ Android N-ify Xposed Module Will Bring Android N Features to Older Phones

=> ↺ How to set up Android N’s freeform window mode

=> ↺ Google launches the Android Experiments I/O Challenge for open-source app developers

=> ↺ Best new icon packs for Android (March 2016) #2

=> ↺ Here is the most profound change that happened to Android when Andy Rubin left and Sundar Pichai took over Google

=> ↺ Android N Developer Preview released: Should you install it?

• New York Cheesecake, Nutella and even Nankhatai are some of the names that have been recommended to Google as the name of the final release for its upcoming Android iteration tagged as Android N. The name game aside, there are plenty of new bits and changes under the hood that every Nexus user (and eventually others in the form of custom ROMs) would like to have.

=> ↺ MIUI 7.2.8 China ROM Based on Android 6.0 Marshmallow Starts Rolling Out

=> ↺ Android Phones Must Have Older Than 4.0 To Fend Off Stagefright Hack

=> ↺ Samsung Galaxy S5: Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow update rolls out globally

=> ↺ Samsung Galaxy S7 review: this is the Android phone you’ve been waiting for

• First, I purchased my Galaxy S7 directly from Samsung so there were no carrier add-ons, but naturally the phone ships with Samsung’s now default TouchWiz implementation over the top of Android Marshmallow 6.0

• I may have a slight bias here because despite a short flirtation with HTC phones in the earlier days of Android I’ve always used Samsung phones, so I’m used to the interface and it doesn’t worry me, and while there were some Samsung apps installed on the device I will never use, they’re hardly a serious burden.

=> ↺ Best Android Phone 2016: Know The One Which Suits You The Best

• 2016 is going to see a flush of the Android phones and choosing the best Android phone among all will surely depend on what you are looking for. Still some factors like Quick charge, 4K video support, fingerprint scanner, type-C port reversible charger, wireless charging etc. are something which will force you to change your mind.

=> ↺ Upcoming Android Smartphones 2016: Samsung Galaxy Note 6, Huawei P9, One Plus 3, Moto X 2016 And More

• Samsung has already launched its first flagships of 2016 and the company’s next flagship, the Galaxy Note 6, is expected to be launched in August or September this year.

• The phablet may sport a 5.8-inch slim RGB AMOLED display with a QHD resolution of 2,560 x 1,440 pixels. Just like the Galaxy S7 and the Galaxy S7 edge, the upcoming Galaxy Note 6 may be available in two variants: one with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor and the other with an Exynos 8 chipset.

=> ↺ WhatsApp 2.12.558 Latest APK Download Available For Android Smartphones

=> ↺ Top 5 Apps That Will Help Maximize Your Android Phone

=> ↺ Infinix Hot 2 (Android One) Update Includes a “RAM Booster”

=> ↺ Android N-ify Xposed Module Aims to Give Your Android 5.0+ Device the Android N Flavor

=> ↺ Google Goggles might meld with your default Android camera app

=> ↺ Google Experiments With Android Camera To Integrate Goggles Visual Search Features

=> ↺ 5 Android apps you shouldn’t miss this week! – Android Apps Weekly

=> ↺ Android’s Stock Dialer App Is Hiding An Easter Egg From ‘The IT Crowd’

=> ↺ Verizon Introduces Android Security Update For LG G3, G4

=> ↺ Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow For Galaxy S5 Goes Global

=> ↺ Beware unofficial apps: why Android malware won’t go away

=> ↺ Changelogs for Android shows you what’s new after the latest app updates

=> ↺ Android N release news for Samsung Galaxy Note 4, Galaxy S6 Edge Plus, Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 Duos, Galaxy Note 5, Galaxy Note 6

=> ↺ Oracle seeks $9.3 billion for Google’s use of Java in Android

=> ↺ Oracle wants $9.3B for Google’s use of Java in Android

Free Software/Open Source

=> ↺ Top 11 project management tools for 2016

• For the last three years, I have rounded up the most popular open source project management tools for Opensource.com readers. As there continues to be major reader interest in this area, I decided to take a look back at the tools we covered in 2014 and 2015, and give you updates on all of these projects. I looked to see which projects had new releases, notable new and improved features, and more.

• Let’s take a look at each of these projects and try to answer some of the questions readers have had in the comments of last year’s edition, including which are still in active development, provide hosting options, offer a mobile solution, and more.

Events

=> ↺ 3 Challenges Facing Open Networking, and More from Open Networking Summit

• This is the year of open source in networking, The Linux Foundation Executive Director Jim Zemlin told a packed room at Open Networking Summit (ONS) in Santa Clara earlier this month. The industry is gaining momentum, as more network players such as China Mobile profess to adopting SDN, and use open source software to meet their needs.

• “2016 is really the confluence of projects up and down the stack,” Zemlin said. “What we’re seeing now is open source projects covering the gamut of technology that’s required to run modern service provider networks and enterprise datacenter networks.”

• Nowhere was this breadth of technology more evident than ONS, which featured more than 175 talks covering every aspect of open networking for developers, technologists, operators, service providers and executives. Managers and practitioners alike came together at the event to listen, present, and interact — all with the aim to accelerate development and transform the networking industry.

=> ↺ Get the Latest on SDN & NFV, Watch the Open Networking Summit 2016 Recap

=> ↺ Watch Collaboration Summit Live Via Free Streaming Video

=> ↺ Day 3 of FOSSASIA 2016

• At 4:30PM we all moved into the big hall for the last session of the event. Hong Phuc and Mario gave many details about how they event went. We had people are 32 different countries, 206 speakers (7 did not turn up), 1086 unique participants. FOSSASIA is going to stay in Singapore, means next year we all are coming back to this amazing country for another great event.

=> ↺ SxSW Mr. Robot TV panel on using real code on the show

• Do you know the American TV show Mr. Robot? It aired in June 2015, and at SxSW Interactive this year, a panel convened to talk about “Coding of Camera: Mr. Robot and Authenticity on TV.” The panel consisted of Sam Esmail, Rami Malek, and Christian Slater.

=> ↺ SxSW Activation – Mr. Robot Hacks Austin

=> ↺ ‘Mr. Robot’ season 2 spoilers: Aasif Mandvi joins the cast; story features encryption, rights to privacy, and ramifications of Elliot’s crime

Web Browsers

Chrome

=> ↺ Google to remove Chrome app launcher for Windows, Linux and Mac

=> ↺ Google Chrome app launcher to retire from Mac, Windows and Linux

=> ↺ Google will retire Chrome app launcher: Here’s why

• Google has announced that it will retire its Chrome app launcher. The company said that since Windows, Mac and Linux users prefer to launch their apps from within Chrome, it is discontinuing the app launcher.

Mozilla

=> ↺ Vulkano: Pairing Rust With Vulkan

SaaS/Big Data

=> ↺ Big Data 2.0: Open Source Becomes A Converged Product

=> ↺ What you missed in Big Data: Analytics-as-a-service gaining steam

=> ↺ Startup Galactic Exchange Spins Up Hadoop, Spark Clusters in Minutes

• Is it possible to spin up a free Hadoop or Spark cluster in only five minutes? That is what startup company Galactic Exchange is billing as its calling card.

• The company is fresh out of stealth mode and wants to cater to those who may not have any Big Data experience at all. Here are more details.

• Galactic Exchange has a beta product, ClusterGX, coming out this week. It is built to work on Linux, Windows or Mac OS, and can reportedly be installed nearly instantly by those with no experience in building clusters, Hadoop or Spark.

=> ↺ A new Ceph cookbook, Technical Committee highlights, and more OpenStack news

=> ↺ Ceph Cookbook Provides Software-Defined Storage Guidance

Databases

=> ↺ Citus 5.0 database goes open source with PostgreSQL push; offers scalable, real-time analytics

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

=> ↺ Gzip 1.7 Released With Synchronous & Rsyncable Options

• New to Gzip is a –synchronous option for forcing fsync usage when outputting data for greater reliability, but obviously at the cost of slower performance. Gzip 1.7 also has a –rsyncable option when compressing to make the output more amendable for efficient rsync use by minimizing the changes within the gzip file.

=> ↺ gzip-1.7 released

• This is to announce gzip-1.7, a stable release. There have been 60 commits by 4 people in the nearly three years since 1.6.

Public Services/Government

=> ↺ Open Source in the enterprise: Perspectives for CIOs

• The proliferation of OSS technologies, libraries, and frameworks in recent years has greatly contributed to the advancement of software development, increased developer productivity, and to the flexibility and customisation of the tools landscape to support different use cases and developers’ preferences.

Openness/Sharing

Open Access/Content

=> ↺ 8 challenges for improving the Indian-language Wikipedias

• After more than 10 years in existence, the Indian-language Wikipedias still are not known to many Indian language speakers. Wikipedia became the largest encyclopedia in history as a result of thousands of volunteer editors. Whereas native-language Wikipedias are becoming game changers in other corners of the world, the scenario in India is skewed.

=> ↺ Universities seek open-source solution to ‘absurd’ textbook prices

• Rajiv Jhangiani grew accustomed to the emails he would receive from his students at the start of each semester:

• “Is a previous edition OK?”

• “Do I really need the textbook?”

• The psychology instructor at Kwantlen Polytechnic University saw an increasing number of students attempting to go without the $150-$250 textbooks he was assigning for his courses, so he decided to stop assigning them.

• “I think it’s absurd, really,” Jhangiani said. “Every two-to-three years we get new editions which are basically cosmetic in terms of the changes that they have, and students are forced to spend a lot of money.”

Open Hardware

=> ↺ The Onion Omega Carputer Can be Controlled via WiFi

• The Onion Omega, a curiously named ultra-tiny linux-based WiFi board, is a useful little device for everything Internet of Things related. [Daniel] decided to use it to connect his car to the internet.

• Most new cars these days have remote start built in, and slowly, manufacturers are catching up to modern technology and including apps to control various features of their vehicles. But for old cars, there’s not much you can do aside from after-market remote start kits and the likes.

=> ↺ Open source OBD-II Adapter

• Automotive diagnostics have come a long way since the “idiot lights” of the 1980s. The current version of the on-board diagnostics (ODB) protocol provides real time data as well as fault diagnostics, thanks to the numerous sensors connected to the data network in the modern vehicle. While the hardware interface is fairly standardized now, manufacturers use one of several different standards to encode the data. [Alex Sidorenko] has built an open source OBD-II Adapter which provides a serial interface using the ELM327 command set and supports all OBD-II standards.

Programming

=> ↺ Software spat raises open source questions

• If your company uses Node.js, you may have suffered a shock this past week. A critical software package in the open source code base that many Node.js applications rely on suddenly disappeared. The problem was quickly rectified, but it caused problems for many users – and belies a fundamental problem with open source software.

• The problem arose when Azer Koçulu, the developer of the Kik software module, was approached by lawyers working for a company of the same name. They wanted him to unpublish his module because the name infringed on theirs, they said. Koçulu refused, so they approached a company called NPM Inc.

Standards/Consortia

=> ↺ Interoperability implementation and monitoring across Europe in 2015: main trends.

• As the majority of European countries have taken into account the European Interoperability Framework (EIF) in their National Interoperability Frameworks (NIFs), the NIFO Observatory focuses its 2015 update on the implementation and monitoring aspects.

Leftovers

=> ↺ Ever wondered what the worst TV show in the world would be? Apple just commissioned it

• Remember when soccer’s governing body FIFA spent $30m making a film about itself starring Tim Roth and Gérard Depardieu?

• Well, the tech world’s most egomaniacal company is going to bring its version to the small screen.

• That’s right, Apple has decided to join Netflix and Amazon and get in on the content commissioning game by ordering a television show about… app developers.

Science

=> ↺ Many Companies Still Don’t Know How to Compete in the Digital Age

• The Internet of Things is a good example of this change. Every industry, no matter how traditional — agriculture, automotive, aviation, energy — is being upended by the addition of sensors, internet connectivity, and software. Success in this environment will depend on more than just creating better digital-enabled products; it will depend on building ecosystem-level strategies that encompass the many moving pieces that come together to create the new value proposition.

Health/Nutrition

=> ↺ Fukushima’s Former Residents Return Home To Ghost Town In Emotional Photos

=> ↺ U.S. Seeks Records of 80,000 Novartis `Sham’ Events for Doctors

• The U.S. is asking Novartis AG to provide records of about 80,000 “sham” events in which the government says doctors were wined and dined so they would prescribe the company’s cardiovascular drugs to their patients.

• The Swiss drugmaker and the Manhattan U.S. Attorney are engaged in a whistle-blower lawsuit that alleges Novartis provided illegal kickbacks to health-care providers through bogus educational programs at high-end restaurants and sports bars where the drugs were barely discussed.

• In a filing Friday, the U.S. said it needs Novartis to provide information to support its allegation that the company defrauded federal health-care programs of hundreds of millions of dollars over a decade by inducing doctors to prescribe its medications through sham speaker events.

Security

=> ↺ Security advisories for Monday

Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

=> ↺ Shooting Up: How War and Drugs Go Together

• OF ALL THE CULTURAL NARRATIVES to emerge in the aftermath of American wars, few have proven as pervasive as the Soldier’s Disease. Popular lore holds that the Soldier’s Disease affected hundreds of thousands of Civil War veterans, Yankee and Confederate. A term so specific and vague all at once, the Soldier’s Disease sounds like something meant to conjure up millenniums-worth of human destruction and violence.

• Yet it was never that visceral, or all that physical. The Soldier’s Disease was code for addiction to morphine or other opiates. Given the industrial nature of the Civil War, and the state of medical treatment at the time, the source of the addiction developed from amputations caused by shrapnel wounds. Morphine and the like numbed the horrifying pain that came with the amputations and recovery process. That dependence became addiction, and returned home with the veterans after the war, unleashing a great scourge upon the land.

• So goes the narrative, at least. There’s just one problem, though: the Soldier’s Disease is more myth than historical record. Modern studies reveal that sure, many a Civil War vet had their opiate issues, but so did a lot of Americans in that era, not the least because of a booming (and often unchecked) pharmaceutical industry. Further, the first chronicled use of “Soldier’s Disease” didn’t appear until 1915, a good 50 years after Appomattox. Why? There was a growing antidrug political movement occurring across the nation, and it needed some talking points.

=> ↺ We All Are Islamic State

• The tit-for-tat game of killing will not end until exhaustion, until the culture of death breaks us emotionally and physically. We use our drones, warplanes, missiles and artillery to rip apart walls and ceilings, blow out windows and kill or wound those inside. Our enemies pack peroxide-based explosives in suitcases or suicide vests and walk into airport terminals, concert halls, cafes or subways and blow us up, often along with themselves. If they had our technology of death they would do it more efficiently. But they do not. Their tactics are cruder, but morally they are the same as us. T.E. Lawrence called this cycle of violence “the rings of sorrow.”

=> ↺ We need both compassion and confrontation to defeat Donald Trump

• Our empathy for white working-class people who are taken with Trump shouldn’t keep us from intervening in the gathering storm of white supremacy that his rise represents, if for no other reason than because we know that the number of people who are repulsed and angry about what he represents—but have remained inactive—is far greater than the total filling the seats of his hate-filled celebrations of patriarchal masculinity. However imperfect our protests have been—and they should incorporate more dramatic and bold experiments along the lines of the Phoenix blockade—they are offering an alternative to the story of white silence, and are galvanizing many to act.

=> ↺ Highlighting Western Victims While Ignoring Victims of Western Violence

• For days now, American cable news has broadcast non-stop coverage of the horrific attack in Brussels. Viewers repeatedly heard from witnesses and from the wounded. Video was shown in a loop of the terror and panic when the bombs exploded. Networks dispatched their TV stars to Brussels, where they remain. NPR profiled the lives of several of the airport victims. CNN showed a moving interview of a wounded, bandage-wrapped Mormon American teenager speaking from his Belgium hospital bed.

=> ↺ Criminal Bankers Control US Government Push War-Paul Craig Roberts

• Former Assistant Treasury Secretary in the Reagan Administration, Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, contends it is no accident why bankers do not get jail time for constantly committing fraud by stealing documents and committing fraudulent, criminal insider trading and market manipulations. Dr. Roberts explains, “Look at Edward Snowden and Julian Assange. They claim they stole documents, and we are determined to destroy them. One of them is hiding out in Russia, and one of them is hiding out in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. This again shows the immunity of the banks. They are not held accountable because they are in control. Who controls the Fed? Who controls the Treasury? Where do all the Treasury Secretaries come from? They come from the big New York banks. Look at the financial regulatory agencies that are supposed to be regulating the banks. They are filled with executives from the banks. The banks control the government. There isn’t a government, there’s the banks. . . . We have the entire economic policy in the United States concentrating on saving five banks. We had 10 million people who lost their homes, and nothing was done for them, but five banks are saved.”

=> ↺ The Pentagon’s Budget Time Bomb

• With plans for military spending on a new Cold War — as well as on old fears about terrorism — spinning out of control, the next U.S. president will face a budgetary time bomb, explains Chuck Spinney.

=> ↺ Hillary the Hypocrite

• Who should play Hillary on Broadway?

• “Maybe Lily Tomlin,” Nader says. “She’s good at playing characters that speak with forked tongues.”

• “Hillary the Hawk is the darling of the military industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned about in his farewell address,” Nader said. “And she gets quite a bit of money from those companies. Hillary the Wall Street Promoter gets money from Wall Street. And yet she comes out on that stage and says exactly the opposite and gets away with it.”

=> ↺ Lessons of Brussels

• The population of Brussels is nearly 25 percent immigrants from Muslim countries, primarily Morocco and Algeria. And as it turns out the two brothers who were the core of the ISIS cell were habitués of the now notorious Molenbeek neighborhood, which consists primarily of the descendants of immigrants who settled there decades ago. Poor, and beset by petty crime, it is a pool in which terrorist recruiters fish with much success. The Syrian civil war has become a cause that attracts young toughs with no prospects, who are looking for some sense of meaning – and a way to express their alienation from the larger society in which they live. Molenbeek was also the base for those who planned and carried out the Paris attacks – it is, in effect, a general headquarters for ISIS to carry out its European operations. Salah Abdeslam, the chief planner of the Paris attacks, fled there and found sanctuary for four months before being caught.

=> ↺ How to Become Terror-Torn Europe—And How Not to

• Our integrated American Muslim communities are helping to keep us safe.

=> ↺ “Families Were Blown Up” — Scenes From a Saudi-Led Bombing in Yemen

• Around midday on March 15, fighter jets from a Saudi-led coalition bombed a market in Mastaba, in Yemen’s northern province of Hajjah. The latest count indicates that about 120 people were killed, including more than 20 children, and 80 were wounded in the strikes — perhaps the deadliest attack yet in a war that has killed more than 6,000 civilians. Local residents and health officials say the carnage was so great in Mastaba that most of the bodies could hardly be identified, and several were beyond recognition.

=> ↺ The Case of Bowe Bergdahl: Military Justice in a Highly Charged Political Season

• In a season when the political becomes theater, and when military actions remain as prominent and prolific as they were when the sergeant enlisted in the military for the second time, the old refrain that military justice is to justice, as military music is to music, ought to give anyone pause hoping that in Sergeant Bergdahl’s case cooler heads will prevail and the accepted wisdom of enough punishment being enough becomes widely shared. Nearly 15 years of war in Afghanistan, and with a nation on permanent war footing, the chance of Sergeant Bergdahl’s case being considered outside of the turbulent winds of the presidential primary season and the general election are highly unlikely. In this highly charged political atmosphere, the chance of justice prevailing is remote. Determining the conditions on the ground in Afghanistan at the time of Bergdahl’s absence from his unit are impossible to assess since this war is only covered by major media outlets when an event of major proportions takes place.

• The details of how Bowe Bergdahl might be punished are worth comparing to the actual punishments resulting from the assault on My Lai in Vietnam in March 1968 and its aftermath. About 500 unarmed men, women, and children were killed in that massacre by US forces. The only officer to face a military trial for the atrocities of My Lai, Lieutenant William Calley, could have faced the death penalty for the 109 Vietnamese he had been charged with murdering. Ultimately, he was convicted of killing 22 civilians and sentenced to life imprisonment. That sentence was reduced to 20 years and then further reduced to 10 years. Calley’s final time spent under house arrest amounted to three and a half years, at which time he was released by a federal court. Bergdahl has never been charged with killing a single individual or responsibility for the death of troops involved in the search for him as the result of his leaving his post. No one was killed during the search for the sergeant.

=> ↺ The Risk of Overreacting to Terror

• There is exploitation by politicians of the spike in public concern about terrorism, this time with presidential candidates calling for patrols of American neighborhoods identified by religion, when those same candidates are not calling for carpet bombing a foreign country.

=> ↺ How Donald Trump and Ted Cruz Help Terrorists Achieve Their Aims

• Recoiling from the terrorist carnage in Brussels, Americans may be attracted to the “tough” posturing of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. The casino mogul wants to bring back torture, while the Texas senator hopes to bomb indiscriminately until the desert glows. Trump would bar any Muslim from entering the United States, while Cruz would dispatch special police patrols into Muslim neighborhoods. Both eagerly demonize Muslims worldwide and stigmatize Muslims in America.

=> ↺ Fighting for recognition: Soviet-Afghan War veterans in Tajikistan

• More than a quarter of a century after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, the afgantsy are still struggling to carve out a place for themselves in post-Soviet Tajikistan.

Environment/Energy/Wildlife

=> ↺ Japan’s Bogus Excuse For Killing Hundreds Of Pregnant Whales

• Japan’s fleet known for capturing whales for research returned to shore this week and confirmed it killed more than 300 minke whales, including pregnant specimens, triggering international condemnation.

• Every year, Japan undertakes what it has labeled as a scientific hunt for whales in the Southern Ocean. However, in 2014, the International Court of Justice ruled Japan should stop. Instead, Japan ignored the ruling last year and announced it would continue whaling while reducing the number of whales it would kill by two-thirds to 333.

=> ↺ Largest Wildfire In State History Ravages Kansas

• On Saturday, four UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters from the Kansas National Guard were deployed to contain the prairie blazes that have burned at least 620 square miles in southern Kansas and Oklahoma, where it originated, the Associated Press reported. Smoke was reportedly detected as far away as St. Louis, Missouri — hundreds of miles to the northeast — as at least four homes and livestock were affected, according to Kansas officials. No serious human injuries or fatalities have been reported.

=> ↺ Nuclear Power Plants: Pre-Deployed WMDs

• That’s what nuclear power plants are. And that’s another very big reason—demonstrated again in recent days with the disclosure that two of the Brussels terrorists were planning attacks on Belgian nuclear plants—why they must be eliminated.

=> ↺ A big deal for our ocean

• Today governments from all over the world will meet at the United Nations in New York to develop a new treaty to save our oceans. We will be there to ensure clear rules for the creation of sanctuaries that will give our oceans the protection they desperately need.

Finance

=> ↺ UN Development Program’s Pledge Toward Ending Poverty and Hunger

• Since its inception, many members of the European confederation of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are allocating more money to addressing the social costs of refugee and asylum seekers. For example, the Netherlands has increased its budget 145%, Italy has raised theirs by 107%, Cyprus increased its by 65%, and Portugal has gone up 38%.

=> ↺ American Crime Family Advances On The White House

• And serve the deep state the Clintons certaintly do as is indicated by the $153 million in “speaking fees”—read bribes and payoffs—that CNN and Fox News report the Clintons have been paid by Wall Street, the mega-banks, and corporate America. This sum does not include campaign donations or donations to the Clintons’ foundation. http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/05/politics/hillary-clinton-bill-clinton-paid-speeches/

=> ↺ VIDEO: Public Education is a Right! Voices of CUNY Students, Faculty and Staff From Die-in Protest

• Students, faculty and staff staged a die-in Thursday in New York City to demand the state fully fund the City University of New York. Later that same day, Governor Andrew Cuomo agreed to some of their demands. Cuomo had threatened to push nearly $500 million in state costs onto the city. Watch a video of some of the voices from the demonstration, at which two city council members were also arrested.

=> ↺ Who’s afraid of the evidence about what works in the NHS?

• Politicians have imposed evidence-free re-organisations on us health workers for years. Now they tell us that it’s too late to change the mess they’ve got us into.

=> ↺ California Reaches Deal to Raise Minimum Wage to $15 an Hour

• Numerous statewide polls have suggested voters would approve a minimum wage proposal—perhaps even a more sweeping version—if given the chance.

PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ Massive Margins in Pacific States Make Saturday Super for Sanders

• Indeed, Sanders bested Clinton by more than sixty points in Alaska, where he took 81.6 percent to her 18.4 percent. In Hawaii, he won 70.6 percent to 29.2 percent and in the delegate-heavy Washington, Sanders beat Clinton 72.7 percent to 27.1 percent.

=> ↺ Sanders Trounces Clinton in Washington State and Alaska

=> ↺ Sanders Takes Significant Bite Out of Clinton’s Lead With Big Wins in Saturday’s Caucuses

=> ↺ 6 Ways Elizabeth Warren Trashed Trump This Week—And Stood by Bernie

• Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren is defending Bernie Sanders’ decision to keep campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination and calling out Donald Trump for being the worst kind of predatory capitalist.

• Warren spoke to reporters after visiting a community health center in suburban Boston and made the following six points about Sanders and Trump, which were quickly picked up by Associated Press.

=> ↺ Groveling Before AIPAC

• The recent AIPAC meeting brought four of the five remaining presidential candidates – all except Bernie Sanders – to Washington to grovel at the feet of the Israel lobby, a depressing scene, says ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.

=> ↺ Bernie Sanders Wins Washington State, Alaska and Hawaii Democratic Caucuses

• Bernie Sanders swept all three Democratic caucuses on Saturday, with decisive victories over front-runner Hillary Clinton in Washington state, Alaska and Hawaii, according to NBC News analysis.

• Speaking to a rapturous crowd in Madison, Wisconsin, after his victory in Alaska, Sanders declared his campaign was making “significant inroads” into Clinton’s big delegate lead.

• The Vermont senator also gave some breaking news to his jubilant supporters.

=> ↺ Sanders and Supporters Celebrate ‘Momentum’ Following Triple Win

• Sanders gained 45 pledged delegates, bringing his current total to 975, inching closer to Clinton’s 1,243. And while the former secretary of State claims the support of 469 superdelegates, Sanders predicts that some of those party elites may change their mind if he keeps notching up such impressive wins.

=> ↺ Why Bernie Sanders was Right to Run as a Democrat

=> ↺ The ‘Sanders Democrat’ is paving the way for the radical left

=> ↺ Is Hillary Clinton Running Away From Political Reality?

=> ↺ Congressman Praises Bernie Sanders’s Israel-Palestine Stance: “I Totally Agree With Him”

=> ↺ Sanders Soars: The Democratic Race Is Closer Than the Republican One

=> ↺ CNN Whitewashes Sanders’ Primary Victories; Denies Diverse Racial Makeup of Hawaii, Alaska and Washington

=> ↺ Like Obama in 2008, Sanders Seeking Superdelegate Switcharoos

=> ↺ Why Rosario Dawson’s Letter to Dolores Huerta Defending Bernie Sanders Struck a Chord

Censorship

=> ↺ Robert De Niro accused of censorship after yanking anti-vaccine movie from film festival

=> ↺ Filmmakers cry ‘censorship’ after Robert DeNiro boots anti-vaxx movie from film festival

=> ↺ ‘Vaxxed’ Filmmakers Accuse De Niro, Tribeca Film Fest Of ‘Censorship’ In Wake Of Cancelation

=> ↺ Robert De Niro Accused of Censorship After Pulling Anti-Vaccine Film From Tribeca Film Festival

=> ↺ Robert De Niro Faces More Backlash Over Anti-Vaxx Tribeca Film Festival Selection

=> ↺ Robert De Niro Pulls Controversial Anti-Vaccine Film From Tribeca Film Festival

=> ↺ UPDATE: DeNiro Pulls Anti-Vaxxer Documentary From Tribeca Film Festival

=> ↺ Filmmakers accuse Robert De Niro of ‘censorship’

=> ↺ Critics Cry ‘Censorship’ After Robert De Niro Pulls Anti-Vaccination Documentary From Tribeca Film Festival

=> ↺ Filmmakers cry ‘censorship’ after Robert DeNiro boots anti-vaxx movie from film festival

=> ↺ ‘Vaxxed’ Filmmakers Accuse Robert De Niro & Tribeca Of “Censorship” In Wake Of Cancelation

=> ↺ Robert De Niro Accused of Censorship After Pulling Out Anti-Vaccine Documentary From Tribeca Film Festival

=> ↺ Robert De Niro Accused of Censorship After Pulling Anti-Vaccine Film From Tribeca Film Festival

=> ↺ Amos Yee is missing but is probably fine says close associate

• Amos Yee, the teen blogger who was convicted for criticising Singapore’s first Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, is missing from his home since 12 Dec 2015. Yee was sentenced to four weeks jail for cutting a video comparing Lee to Jesus.

• [...]

• Toh further said in her post that she believed that Yee was arrested just for criticising Mr Lee so soon after his death. Referring to the ongoing second investigation Toh said, “saying that Amos had offended Islam was just another excuse to arrest and silence him.”

=> ↺ Twitter’s Censorship Policy Too Inconsistent

• The Brussels terror attacks earlier this week stoked the hashtag #StopIslam on Twitter and other social media platforms. The phrase was one of Twitter’s most popular hashtags in the hours following the attack until the site removed #StopIslam from its U.S. and Worldwide trending topics.

=> ↺ Google scales the Great Firewall, falls off 105 minutes later

=> ↺ Google Makes Short-Lived Return to China

=> ↺ Excitement in China as Google, Instagram jump Great Firewall – for just two hours

=> ↺ Google breaks through China’s Great Firewall … but only for just over an hour

=> ↺ The great firewall of China allowed Google access for one hour this weekend

=> ↺ Google briefly worked out a way of bypassing China’s Great Firewall

=> ↺ Cartoon: Heng on Zuckerberg Courting China

=> ↺ Xi’s great firewall stirs discontent among young Chinese

• China’s young people are fed up. From the well-policed streets of Beijing to the turbulent campuses of Hong Kong, their discontent has blossomed into a surprising challenge to President Xi Jinping.

Privacy

=> ↺ Law Enforcement’s Nemesis — WhatsApp — Is Also Law Enforcement’s Best Friend

• David Cameron announced early last year that it was “unacceptable” that all communications could not be intercepted and read by intelligence services and law enforcement agencies. He stopped short of calling for a ban but strongly hinted this would be addressed in the Snooper’s Charter.

• This followed the head of the UK’s GCHQ throwing both terrorism and child porn into the mix while vocally handwringing about encrypted communications — portraying tech companies as callous accomplices of child abusers and jihadists.

• In Brazil, WhatsApp was blocked and a Facebook executive arrested for refusing to hand over identifying information on its users.

=> ↺ Rep. Speier Wants To Register Every Prepaid Phone Purchase, In Case Someone Bad Uses One As A Burner Phone

• First, the legislators came for encrypted phones, because terrorists were apparently using encryption. (Except they weren’t.) Now, they’re coming for prepaid phones. Sure, customers will still be able to buy prepaid phones. They’ll just have to “register” with their local retailer in order to do so.

=> ↺ iPhone Forensics Experts Demonstrate Basic Proof Of Concept That The iPhone Hack The FBI Says ‘Doesn’t Work’ Actually Does Work

• When the DOJ announced that the FBI may have miraculously found a way in to Syed Farook’s work iPhone after swearing to a court that such a thing was impossible, many people zeroed in on the possibility of “NAND Mirroring” as the technique in question. After all, during a Congressional hearing, Rep. Darrell Issa had gone fairly deep technically (for a Congressperson, at least) in asking FBI Director James Comey if the FBI had tested such a method. Well-known iPhone forensics guru Jonathan Zdziarski wrote up a good blog post explaining why such a technique was the most likely. While recognizing that there are other possibilities, he does a good job breaking down why none of the other possibilities are all that likely, given a variety of facts related to the case (I won’t go through all of that — just go read his post). It’s worth a read.

=> ↺ NSA Whistleblower Comes Out of the Shadows Into the Light

• Karen: I always intended to link my name with my story because it is a story that needs to be told, but since I have a lawsuit against NSA (technically an appeal of an unlawful, employer action, i.e. my termination at the 28 point year of my career for trying to request an investigation by the NSA Inspector General), sitting under a gag order demanded by NSA, on the docket at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in Baltimore, I could not do so without risking the adjudication going against me for that reason alone. However, in 2015 NSA Security made the decision to yet again engage in a massive slander campaign against me in my new location, thus breaking its own gag order so I feel no compunction to be held to a standard required by the EEOC judge at NSA’s request that NSA itself clearly holds in utter contempt.

=> ↺ School District That Said NSA Told It To Monitor Students’ Social Media Posts Is Back With Non-NSA Approved Monitoring

• The same Alabama school district that claimed God the NSA told it to monitor its students’ social media activities is back in the news again. The tune has changed but the lyrics remain the same. This new social media monitoring program proceeds without the NSA’s blessing or the use of a snappy acronym, but it’s pretty much the same thing — only expanded to cover all students (potentially), rather than the former’s programs 600 or so “targets.”

=> ↺ Officials Track Child Social Media to ‘Punish’ Students for Inappropriate Posts Made Out of School

=> ↺ National Security Agency Head Makes Secret Visit to Israel

=> ↺ NSA chief ‘makes secret Israel trip to talk Iran, Hezbollah cyber-warfare’

=> ↺ The StuxNet Team Reunion

• All the more so given this news: last week (apparently after Thursday), Admiral Mike Rogers had a “secret” meeting with Israel’s Intelligence Corps Unit 8200, the unit CyberCom partnered with on the StuxNet attack.

=> ↺ NSA Chief Visited Israel Secretly to Coordinate Cyber Warfare

=> ↺ NSA chief in Israel to strengthen relations between spy services

=> ↺ NSA head makes secret visit to Israel

=> ↺ NSA chief paid secret visit to Israel last week

=> ↺ U.S. National Security Agency Head Paid Secret Visit to Israel

Civil Rights

=> ↺ Obama Visits Havana: Cuba Libre for Real?

• National isolation is the desire of every dictator: If his subjects never see what a freer society looks like or have the opportunity to avail themselves of its goods and services, they have no standard against which to measure his rule and find it wanting.

=> ↺ GOP Lawmakers Tout Religious Liberty, Duck Questions About Discriminating Against Muslims

• IN THE RUN-UP to oral arguments before the Supreme Court this week to challenge the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that employers’ health care plans cover birth control, Republican lawmakers held a series of events to highlight the importance of religious liberty. Conservatives claim that the law, which requires insurance companies to cover contraception, violates the religious rights of Catholic nuns.

• That commitment to religious freedom, however, does not appear to extend to Muslim Americans.

• On Tuesday, in reaction to the terror attacks in Belgium, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz called for law enforcement to preemptively “patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized.” Later that day, The Intercept attended a press conference organized by House Republicans to champion religious liberty ahead of the Supreme Court contraception case.

=> ↺ Trump’s Incomprehensible ‘Cyber’ Policy: ‘Make Cyber Great Again’

• It seems pretty clear that Trump has no clue what is being discussed and just falls back into his usual talking points about how America just isn’t that good any more, and then uses the tiny bit of information he does have (China and Russia have been in the news around hackings) and argues that they’re better than us. But, “we’re obsolete”? Huh? As noted above (not by him, of course), the most powerful computer-based attacks do seem to be coming from the US itself, not Russia or China.

• Also, what does “inconceivable that, inconceivable the power of cyber” even mean? All I can think of is the scene from The Princess Bride.

=> ↺ Bank of America, Microsoft Denounce North Carolina’s Anti-LGBT Law, but Fund Politicians Who Passed It

• Microsoft has joined a corporate campaign calling on politicians “to abandon or defeat” anti-LBGT legislation, and its president, Brad Smith, specifically criticized the North Carolina law on Twitter. And like the political action committees of Bank of America and Lowe’s, Microsoft’s PAC — run by its managing director for government affairs, Edward Ingle — has given to the same anti-LBGT politicians, though somewhat less generously. Since 2008, the Microsoft PAC has given $2,000 to McCrory, $3,000 to Berger, $2,000 to Moore, and $4,000 to the North Carolina Republican Party.

=> ↺ The Culture That Created Donald Trump Was Liberal, Not Conservative

• WHO CREATED Donald Trump?

• Now that Donald Trump, the candidate, has become both widely popular and deeply loathsome, we’re seeing a cataract of editorials and commentary aimed at explaining how it happened and who’s to blame. The predictable suspects are trotted out: the Republican Party, which had been too opportunistic and fearful to stand up to its own candidate, Fox News, which inflamed the jingoes, and white working-class voters, unhinged by class envy and racial resentment.

=> ↺ CIA Photographed Detainees Naked and Bound Before Extraditing Them for Torture

• The CIA took photographs of detainees naked, bound, and blindfolded—some with visible bruises—before extraditing them to other countries to be tortured, an investigation by the Guardian’s Spencer Ackerman revealed on Monday.

• “The naked imagery of CIA captives raises new questions about the seeming willingness of the U.S. to use what one medical and human rights expert called ‘sexual humiliation’ in its post-9/11 captivity of terrorism suspects,” Ackerman wrote. “Some human rights campaigners described the act of naked photography on unwilling detainees as a potential war crime.”

• Ackerman also reported that “a former U.S. official who had seen some of the photographs described them as ‘very gruesome.’” The photos in question remain classified.

• The detainees were photographed before being extradited to nations known to use more brutal forms of torture than that used in the U.S., Ackerman said, as part of the CIA’s so-called “extraordinary rendition” program.

• The writer V. Noah Gimbel characterized that program in 2011 as “the outsourcing of interrogations to countries where torture could be employed without the legal barriers that exist within the U.S. military and civilian justice systems.”

=> ↺ US Intel Vets Warn Against Torture

• Experienced intelligence professionals reaffirm that torture – while popular with “tough” politicians – doesn’t work in getting accurate and actionable information, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.

Internet/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ Comcast Fails To Connect SmartCar’s Silicon Valley Office For 10 Months, Wants $60,000 Anyway

• Comcast for years has offered what most find to be utterly abysmal customer service and support, resulting in story after story of nightmare experiences for consumers and businesses alike. This is, by and large, thanks to limited competition in most of Comcast’s footprint, and despite Silicon Valley being arguably the tech epicenter of the country, the region apparently isn’t immune to Comcast’s particular… charms or the nation’s obvious lack of broadband competition.

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