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● 12.23.16

● Links 23/12/2016: New Alpine, Rust 1.14

Posted in News Roundup at 12:24 am by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

=> ↺ 4 easy Linux projects for newbies and intermediate users

• It’s nearing the end of the year, and most people are busy finishing up the last week’s worth of work, and students are finishing up finals. For me, the last week and a half of December is usually a time to catch up on sleep, and take it easy. But an endless flow of cookies and Netflix can get tiresome.

• Even if the end of the year is full of family commitments, dinners, and last-minute oh-geez-what-do-I-buy-my-brother-in-law shopping, a small project that doesn’t take too long can be rewarding, and may yield future benefits. Here are a few ideas that shouldn’t take more than a few hours.

=> ↺ 5 Essential Linux Holiday Amusements

• Yes, my fellow penguins, it is time for the annual ritual of having fun with silly Linux holiday commands! The fun of being a grownup is you get to make your own observances, and Linux silliness is one of mine. Without further ado let us plunge into our maelstrom of Linux holiday delights.

Desktop

=> ↺ Are Chromebooks Fuelling Rise in Linux OS Marketshare?

• It’s a question many have been asking over the past few months, as open-source enthusiasts rallied around reports that show Linux marketshare gaining ground for another consecutive month.

• ‘Why?’, many asked. Why now, after years of loitering around ~1% mark is Linux lifting off? Why are stat counters and markshare analysts suddenly finding more beans to count in the penguins’ corner?

• The answer could be Chromebooks.

Server

=> ↺ Fast Rewind: 2016 Was a Wild Ride for HPC

• Market signals from ARM chip suppliers have been a bit more mixed and it will be interesting to watch ARM traction in 2017, not least traction in China. Here are three articles looking at ARM’s progress and that SoftBank purchase.

Kernel Space

=> ↺ Linux Weather Forecast

• This page is an attempt to track ongoing developments in the Linux development community that have a good chance of appearing in a mainline kernel and/or major distributions sometime in the near future. Your “chief meteorologist” is Jonathan Corbet, Executive Editor at LWN.net. If you have suggestions on improving the forecast (and particularly if you have a project or patchset that you think should be tracked), please add your comments below.

=> ↺ Stefan Achatz, the developer who worked on Linux support for Roccat devices answers why he’s stopping

Graphics Stack

=> ↺ Google Working On WebGL / OpenGL ES Over Vulkan

• Google engineers are working on support for running OpenGL ES / WebGL over Vulkan drivers.

Benchmarks

=> ↺ 31-Way NVIDIA GeForce / AMD Radeon Linux OpenGL Comparison – End-Of-Year 2016

• Last week I published some fresh AMD Linux 4.9 + Mesa 13.1-dev benchmarks on many different AMD Radeon GPUs going all the way back to the Radeon HD 4800 series days. Today those numbers are being complemented by an extensive NVIDIA GeForce Fermi / Kepler / Maxwell / Pascal comparison to make up a 31-way NVIDIA/AMD Linux OpenGL performance comparison. If you are curious how the NVIDIA and AMD Linux performance is with the very latest drivers and going back several hardware generations, this holiday article is for you.

Applications

=> ↺ Krita Devs Work on SVG Support, Python Scripting, and Text Tools for Krita 3.2

• Now that Krita 3.1 launched as the latest stable release of the 3.x series, the development team of the popular, open-source and cross-platform digital painting software shared with us some of the plans for upcoming releases.

• According to the devs, who are currently working on fixing bugs reported by users from the current Krita 3.1.x stable branch, the next major release of the application might be 3.2 or even 4.0 if the new features that are about to be implemented are of massive interest to the Open Source community.

=> ↺ LibreOffice 5.3 Slated for Release on February 1, 2017, LibreOffice 5.2.4 Is Out

• After informing us about the upcoming MUFFIN user-friendly and flexible user interface concept for LibreOffice 5.3, as well as the launch of a brand-new LibreOffice Extensions & Templates website, The Document Foundations releases LibreOffice 5.2.4.

• LibreOffice 5.2.4 is here more than six weeks after the release of the third maintenance update to the current LibreOffice 5.2 stable series. It appears to address a total of 125 bugs and issues that have been reported by users since LibreOffice 5.2.3, across all included components. LibreOffice 5.2.4 is a recommended update for everyone, especially those using LibreOffice 5.1.6.

=> ↺ Top 3 Linux Performance Monitoring Tools

• Performance monitoring in Linux system is a MUST and very important process. It is always suggested to get automated performance alerts through monitoring tools. Linux monitoring systems can help you with managing all critical performance tweaks so that critical issues/errors can be resolved well within the timelines.

• Here we are going to discuss about top 3 Linux performance monitoring systems that can help you with monitoring Linux system’s performance on routine basis.

=> ↺ An Introduction to Text Editors — Get to Know nano and vim

• At some point in your Linux administration career, you are going to edit a configuration file, write a Bash script, code, take a note, or any given task associated with text editors. When you do, you will turn to one of the popular text editors available to the Linux platform.

Proprietary

=> ↺ Vivaldi 1.7 Web Browser Enters Development with Support for Taking Screenshots

• As a Christmas gift to all of you out there using the Chromium-based Vivaldi web browser, Vivaldi’s Ruarí Ødegaard informed us today, December 22, 2016, about the availability of the first development snapshot of Vivaldi 1.7.

• That’s right, only two weeks after the launch of Vivaldi 1.6 as the world’s first web browser to display notifications in tabs, the next major release, Vivaldi 1.7, is open for development. The first snapshot, Vivaldi 1.7.704.3, already introduces a cool new feature, namely support for taking screenshots of web pages or even to the main window of Vivaldi.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ How to Install the Latest OpenShot Release on Ubuntu

=> ↺ Vulnerability scanning of Docker images on OpenPOWER systems

=> ↺ The Tiny Internet Project, Part III

• In a previous article, I introduced the Tiny Internet Project, a self-contained Linux project that shows you how to build key pieces of the internet on a single computer using virtualization software, a router and free open-source applications. In the second installment, I explained how to set up the host server using Proxmox and build a first basic Ubuntu 14.04 virtual machine. In this third installment, you’ll learn how to set up an Ubuntu mirror, a DNS server, a mail server and a web server.

• As you finished with Part II, you hopefully had just booted a raw Ubuntu 14.04 server VM. Now, I’ll describe how to customize that VM with some user accounts and software, keeping it fairly generic, but ready to become a template for most everything else you’ll build.

• Initially, you’ll do all your work from the Proxmox web interface on your Proxmox server: https://10.128.1.2:8006.

Games

=> ↺ Heavy Gear Assault Steam release delayed by Valve

• Heavy Gear Assault is not to be confused with earlier Heavy Gear titles, as it’s quite a different beast. It is powered by Unreal Engine 4 and already has some impressive looking graphics.

=> ↺ Streets of Rogue, the rogue-lite about player choice now has co-op and online play

=> ↺ Aspyr Media state no news about the ‘feasibility’ of Civilization VI on Linux until after the holidays

=> ↺ Block’hood, the neighbourhood-building simulator is now available for Linux

• Block’hood [Steam, Official Site], the Early Access neighbourhood-building simulator from Plethora-Project LLC is now available for Linux.

=> ↺ Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade and Stunt Island are now available for Linux on GOG

• GOG have put up two more classic games with Linux support today with Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade and Stunt Island.

=> ↺ Steam Winter Sale Is Packed with Linux Bargains

• The Steam Winter sale 2016 is now live with plenty go gaming discounts, deals and price drops. In this post we share some of our favourite deals now the sale has started.

=> ↺ The Steam Winter sale is now live, prepare your wallets

=> ↺ Steam’s 2016 Winter Sale Has Begun: Good Deals On Linux / SteamOS Games

• VALVE – Valve just lit up the Steam Winter Sale that’s going on until 2 January for getting great deals on a variety of games, including many Steam OS / Linux games.

• Steam’s Winter Sale is always quite great and well received by gamers with this year’s deals appearing to be quite exciting if you are looking to pickup some new games this holiday season.

=> ↺ Feral Interactive are also doing a winter sale until January 2nd

Desktop Environments/WMs

GNOME Desktop/GTK

=> ↺ A stable base for Flatpak: 0.8

• Earlier this week I released Flatpak 0.8.0. The version change is meant to signal the start of a new long-term supported branch. The 0.8.x series will be strictly bugfixes, and all new features will happen in 0.9.x.

• The release has a few changes, such as a streamlined command line interface and OCI support, but it also has several additions that make Flatpak more future-proof. For instance, we added versioning to all file formats, and a minimal-flatpak-version-required field for applications.

=> ↺ Flatpak 0.8 Released, The Start Of An LTS Stable Branch

=> ↺ Larsson: A stable base for Flatpak: 0.8

Distributions

New Alpine

=> ↺ Alpine 3.5.0 released

• We are pleased to announce the release of Alpine Linux 3.5.0, the first in the v3.5 stable series.

=> ↺ Alpine Linux 3.5 Hits the Streets with ZFS Support for Root, Moves to LibreSSL

• Today, December 22, 2016, Alpine Linux creator Natanael Copa was proud to announce the general availability of the first stable release in the 3.5 series of the independently-developed GNU/Linux distribution.

• Being a major release and all that, the Alpine Linux 3.5 series introduces a bunch of exciting new features, among which we can mention support for the ZFS file system as root, support for AArch64 (ARM64 or ARM 64-bit) hardware architectures, but only uboot is currently working, and replacement of OpenSSL libraries with LibreSSL.

=> ↺ Alpine Linux 3.5 Ships With ZFS Root File-System Support, Switches To LibreSSL

• The lightweight Alpine Linux distribution that is built around Musl libc and BusyBox and popular in the container space has issued a big update to their Linux operating system.

OpenSUSE/SUSE

=> ↺ Highlights of YaST development sprint 29

• It’s Christmas time and since (open)SUSE users have been nice, the YaST team brings some gifts for them. This is the result of the last development sprint of 2016.

• As you may have noticed, in the latest sprints we have been focusing more and more in making SUSE CASP possible. That’s even more obvious in this last sprint of the year. For those that have not been following this blog recently, it’s probably worth to remember that SUSE CASP will be a Kubernetes based Container As a Service Platform.

• But our daily work goes beyond CASP, so let’s take a look to all the highlights.

Red Hat Family

=> ↺ CIAs: Winners’ Circle interview – Red Hat

• As the model for cloud providers expands to include private cloud build-outs, Linux container-based infrastructure and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) solutions, additional flexibility is needed to help these providers better meet customer needs for cloud-based Red Hat technologies.

• The Red Hat Certified Cloud and Service Provider (CCSP) program aims to meet this need by not only broadening partner support, but by also expanding the choice of Red Hat solutions available to these partners.

=> ↺ CIAs: Partner Program of the Year – Red Hat

• As the channel grows ever-more complex, so the options presented to partners in terms of vendors and partner programs grow in number and diversity. Too much choice (often referred to as ‘noise’) is not always a good thing.

• And in the channel, there are those partner programs that are simple to navigate and offer every partner the ease of doing business the channel craves. Then there are those partner programs that are often described as either token efforts with no real meaning or so un-partner friendly that it feels like obstacles are being presented at every turn.

=> ↺ CentOS-Based NethServer 7 GNU/Linux Distribution Gets One Last Release Candidate

• Now that the CentOS community announced the final release of the CentOS 7.3 (build 1611) distribution based on the freely distributed source code of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.3 operating system, it’s time for NethServer 7 to hit the streets as well, and the last Release Candidate is here to resolve the remaining blockers.

• “Time is gone in a rush since our last Release Candidate and we’re approaching very quickly the final release, but as you know we’re still fixing bugs and sorting out some issues that came up,” said Alessio Fattorini. “Now, after a few weeks of hard work, we’re finally ready for NethServer 7 RC3 “Tiramisù” and it’s time to get it off the ground.”

=> ↺ NethServer 7 RC3 released

Finance

=> ↺ Stock Futures Down A Tad; Micron Soars, RedHat Dives On Results

=> ↺ Analysts’ Actions — Las Vegas Sands, Red Hat, Greif and More

• Red Hat (RHT) was downgraded to market perform from outperform at BMO Capital. $75 price target. Earnings estimates were also cut, given a lower outlook for billings growth, BMO said.

=> ↺ Red Hat beats 3Q profit views, misses revenue forecasts

=> ↺ Notable Stock Analyst Recommendations: Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE:RHT), Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL)

=> ↺ Red Hat Gets Crushed on Earnings and CFO Departure

=> ↺ Tech Today: Micron Soars, Red Hat Plunges, MSFT lauded, Apple Sued

=> ↺ Why Red Hat, Inc. Fell 14% Today

=> ↺ Red Hat and Bed Bath & Beyond Skid; Hershey Edges Higher

=> ↺ RSI Alert: Red Hat (RHT) Now Oversold

=> ↺ Red Hat beats 3Q profit views, misses revenue forecasts

=> ↺ Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Bed Bath & Beyond Drops After Weak Q3 Results; Tokai Pharmaceuticals Shares Surge

=> ↺ Red Hat Net Surges; Bed Bath & Beyond, Conagra Brands Net Plunge

=> ↺ Analyst Downgrades: Red Hat Inc, Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and Bed Bath & Beyond Inc.

=> ↺ Red Hat Wins Big with OpenShift in 3Q17

Fedora

=> ↺ Generic Cluster Management + Virtualization Flavor

• Looking into the sea actually reveals a few cluster managers. One of them is Kubernetes (which is also available on Fedora and CentOS).

=> ↺ 6 great monospaced fonts for code and terminal in Fedora

Debian Family

=> ↺ Raspberry Pi’s PIXEL Linux desktop environment now available for x86 PCs

• In a rather curious turn, the Raspberry Pi foundation has released an x86 PC port of its PIXEL+Debian Linux desktop environment.

• PIXEL (which is a clunky backronym for Pi Improved Xwindows Environment, Lightweight) is an extensively modified version of the LXDE X11 desktop environment. It was originally released in September for use with Raspberry Pi single-board computers, but now it has also been packaged up for x86 PCs. You can boot your Windows or Mac PC into the PIXEL desktop environment right now, if you so wish.

• In the words of Eben Upton, founder of the foundation, PIXEL is “our best guess as to what the majority of users are looking for in a desktop environment [...] Put simply, it’s the GNU/Linux we would want to use.” To that end, PIXEL is both clean and modern-looking, but more importantly it is useful, with a wide range of productivity software and programming tools pre-installed. PIXEL doesn’t eschew proprietary software, either; it even comes with the Adobe Flash browser plug-in.

Derivatives

Canonical/Ubuntu

=> ↺ Ubuntu 17.04 Now Powered by Linux Kernel 4.9 and Mesa 13.0, to Track Linux 4.10

• Canonical’s Joseph Salisbury informed the Ubuntu Linux community about the latest news regarding the development of the upcoming Ubuntu 17.04 (Zesty Zapus) operating system.

=> ↺ Linux Kernel 4.9 Now Unofficially Available for Ubuntu, Debian, and Linux Mint

• After announcing the other day the release of his Ubuntu-based ExTiX 17.0 GNU/Linux distribution, developer Arne Exton informed us about the general availability of the recently released Linux 4.9 kernel for Ubuntu and Debian operating systems.

• As expected with any new Linux kernel release, Arne Exton forks it for distribution across all of its supported Linux-based operating systems. The first one to ship with the final Linux 4.9 kernel was ExTiX 17.0, but it looks like you can also install this custom kernel on various Ubuntu or Debian-based distros, including Linux Mint.

=> ↺ Ubuntu 17.04 Zesty Zapus to Drop Support for 32-bit PowerPC (PPC) Architectures

• Today, December 22, 2016, Canonical’s Steve Langasek informed the community of the popular Ubuntu Linux operating system that support for 32-bit PPC (PowerPC) installation images will be dropped from Ubuntu 17.04 onwards.

• The deprecation of 32-bit and PPC ISOs from Ubuntu was discussed last month by several Ubuntu developers during the Ubuntu Online Summit event, including Ubuntu MATE’s Martin Wimpress, which is now a Canonical employee as part of the Ubuntu Desktop Team, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone out there closely watching the Ubuntu scene.

=> ↺ Canonical Announces Own Distribution of Kubernetes 1.5.1 for Ubuntu 16.04 Linux

• Shortly after the official release of the major open-source production-grade container orchestration management Kubernetes 1.5 stable branch of the last week, Canonical proudly announced the availability of its own distribution of Kubernetes for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) systems.

• Providing users with a pure upstream distribution of Kubernetes, Canonical offers them full support for Kubernetes 1.5.1, CNI (Container Network Interface) support for Charms, which paves the way for support of other CNI -based SDN (Software Defined Network) apps like Weave and Calico, as well as debug actions for the kubernetes-worker and kubernetes-master Charms.

=> ↺ Announcing The Canonical Distribution of Kubernetes 1.5.1

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ Zephyr and Curie Team Up for Neonatal Wearable for the Developing World

• The Zephyr Project is still a babe in the technological woods, so it’s only fitting that the open source real-time operating system is driving an innovative wearables solution that aims to improve healthcare for infants. At the recent Embedded Linux Conference Europe, Teresa Cauvel, CTO and co-founder of Chicago-based neonatal health technology startup Neopenda, explained how her company built a neonatal monitoring bracelet for hospitals in the developing world using an Intel Curie module running Zephyr. The complete talk, called “Leveraging IoT Biometrics and Zephyr RTOS for Neonatal Nursing in Uganda” can be seen in the video link below.

• [...]

• The initial prototype was built around an Arduino Uno, followed by a model that used the Uno’s ATMega328 MCU breadboarded with WiFi and the most essential components. Power considerations led quickly to swapping WiFi for Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), which also raised fewer questions about radiation risks.

• The current iteration uses the Intel Curie module, which runs Zephyr on an x86-compatible Intel Quark SE CPU. The dime-sized Curie offers the advantage of being smaller, more affordable, and more power efficient than an Arduino. It also furnishes an ARC EM4-based sensor subsystem and a built-in BLE radio, and its 80KB of SRAM makes it more suitable for complex BLE applications.

=> ↺ Talks between OpenWrt and LEDE

• We had multiple meetings to find a solution to solve the problems between the OpenWrt and the LEDE project and to discuss a possible merge. Everyone with commit access to LEDE and all OpenWrt core developers were invited to these meetings. We had productive and friendly discussions about the problems and our goals.

=> ↺ Embedded controller powers up with Apollo Lake

Phones

Android

=> ↺ The 6 best Android phones of 2016

• Android smartphones get better every year, but there are a lot more good ones than there used to be. The hardware is faster, Android is more refined, and designs are smarter. It all adds up to an embarrassment of riches. Phones that would have been blockbusters a few years ago are seen as middle-of-the-road.

=> ↺ 4 CES surprises already teased for Android lovers

• As the end of December approaches, visions of sugar plums are dancing in Android fans’ heads as they await the big event. Not Christmas—we’re talking about CES 2017. While there are more rumors than you can shake a stocking at, several companies have already begun to promote their upcoming announcements.

=> ↺ Google will launch two flagship smartwatches early next year

=> ↺ Android Wear 2.0 debuts on two partner flagship smartwatches in early 2017

=> ↺ Android Nougat Galaxy S7: Latest news, features and more

• Months after launching the final version of Android Nougat — the seventh Android operating system — Google released an update on Dec. 5: Android 7.1.1. The update to Android Nougat 7.0 aims to bring “many of the cool features of Pixel to everyone.”

=> ↺ Samsung Galaxy J7 2017 leaks in renders and 360 video

=> ↺ Android Nougat: How to download the latest version for Galaxy S7

=> ↺ ‘Twas Brillo but then Android Things, which watched as Google Weaved its Nest

=> ↺ Signal for Android update ducks censorship, adds stickers and doodles

Free Software/Open Source

=> ↺ How to build powerful and productive online communities

• These accidental communities offered tremendous value to their participants with skills development, networking, and relationships. They also offered significant financial value. The Smithsonian valued Wikipedia at tens of billions of dollars and the Linux Foundation deduced that a typical Linux distribution would cost around $11 billion to recreate using traditional commercial methods.

Web Browsers

Mozilla

=> ↺ Now We All Agree: There are no safe backdoors when it comes to encryption

• There are many recent examples of the threats to Internet security. We’ve talked about how protecting cybersecurity is a shared responsibility and we see increased need for governments, tech companies and users to work together on topics like encryption, security vulnerabilities and surveillance.

• The most well known example is the Apple vs FBI case from earlier this year. In this case, law enforcement officials said they were unable to access encrypted data on an iPhone during an investigation. The FBI wanted to require Apple to create flawed versions of their software to access encrypted data on an iPhone of a known criminal.

• Mozilla argued in statements and filings that requiring tech companies to create encryption backdoors for law enforcement to decrypt data would 1) weaken security for individuals and the Internet overall, defeating the purpose of creating such technology in the first place and 2) set a dangerous precedent in the US and globally for governments to require tech companies to make flawed versions of software that would be vulnerable to criminals (not just government hacking).

=> ↺ Rust 1.14 Released With Experimental WebAssembly Support

=> ↺ Announcing Rust 1.14

• The Rust team is happy to announce the latest version of Rust, 1.14.0. Rust is a systems programming language focused on safety, speed, and concurrency.

• As always, you can install Rust 1.14.0 from the appropriate page on our website, and check out the detailed release notes for 1.14.0 on GitHub. 1230 patches were landed in this release.

BSD

=> ↺ FreeBSD Making Progress On Wayland Support, The Basics Are Working

• FreeBSD is making some progress on supporting Wayland/Weston as an alternative to running the X.Org Server.

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

=> ↺ GNU Guix and GuixSD 0.12.0 released

• We are pleased to announce the new release of GNU Guix and GuixSD, version 0.12.0!

• The release comes with USB installation images to install the standalone GuixSD, and with tarballs to install the package manager on top of your GNU/Linux distro, either from source or from binaries.

=> ↺ GNU Guix/GuixSD 0.12 Released

=> ↺ GNU Compiler Collection 6.3 Fixes 79 Bugs as GCC 7 Is Nearing End of Development

• Red Hat’s Jakub Jelinek was proud to announce the release and immediate availability of the third stabilization update to the GCC (GNU Compiler Collection) 6 series for GNU/Linux distributions.

• GCC (GNU Compiler Collection) 6.3 is here four months after the release of the previous maintenance update, namely GCC 6.2, and promises to address many of the bugs and annoyances reported by users since then. According to the developers, it looks like more than 79 recorder bugs have been fixed in this new version.

Public Services/Government

=> ↺ France’s free software sector grows by 15%

• Sales by France’s ICT companies specialising in free and open source software and related services have grown by 15% on average in the period October 2015 – October 2016, reports the Conseil National du Logiciel Libre (CNLL), France’s trade group advocating free software, representing over three hundred ICT firms. “Our sector is growing, and has many start-ups, and small and medium-sizes enterprises”, CNLL said in a statement.

Leftovers

Security

=> ↺ Thursday’s security updates

=> ↺ Lithuania said found Russian spyware on its government computers

• The Baltic state of Lithuania, on the frontline of growing tensions between the West and Russia, says the Kremlin is responsible for cyber attacks that have hit government computers over the last two years.

• The head of cyber security told Reuters three cases of Russian spyware on its government computers had been discovered since 2015, and there had been 20 attempts to infect them this year.

• “The spyware we found was operating for at least half a year before it was detected – similar to how it was in the USA,” Rimtautas Cerniauskas, head of the Lithuanian Cyber Security Centre said.

=> ↺ Dear CIO: Linux Mint Encourages Users to Keep System Up-to-Date

• Swapnil Bhartiya gets it wrong.

• Let me start by pointing out that Bhartiya is not only a capable open source writer, he’s also a friend. Another also: he knows better. That’s why the article he just wrote for CIO completely confounds me. Methinks he jumped the gun and didn’t think it through before he hit the keyboard.

• The article ran with the headline Linux Mint, please stop discouraging users from upgrading. In it, he jumps on Mint’s lead developer Clement Lefebvre’s warning against unnecessary upgrades to Linux Mint.

=> ↺ Infosec in Review: Security Professionals Look Back at 2016

• 2016 was an exciting year in information security. There were mega-breaches, tons of new malware strains, inventive phishing attacks, and laws dealing with digital security and privacy. Each of these instances brought the security community to where we are now: on the cusp of 2017.

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ Donald Trump: US must greatly expand nuclear capabilities

• Donald Trump has called for the US to “greatly strengthen and expand” its nuclear capabilities.

• The president-elect, who takes office next month, said the US must take such action “until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes”.

• His spokesman later said that he was referring to the need to prevent nuclear proliferation.

• Mr Trump spoke hours after President Vladimir Putin said Russia needs to bolster its military nuclear potential.

• The US has 7,100 nuclear weapons and Russia has 7,300, according to the US nonpartisan Arms Control Association.

=> ↺ Donald Trump Unleashes The Hounds Of War

• See what happens when you put a mad man in charge? Much of my lifetime was spent trying to put nuclear weapons back in the box so they would never be used. Now Trump wants to fire up the arms-race again, just to make USA “Great” again. What a short-sighted, wrong-headed, dangerous old fool is the president-elect.

Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

=> ↺ ‘You couldn’t hear, you couldn’t sit’: Activists asked to leave Enbridge meeting Tuesday night (W/ VIDEO)

• A community meeting hosted by energy company Enbridge quickly dissolved Tuesday after a Bemidji police officer asked environmental activist Winona LaDuke to leave.

• The meeting, held at the DoubleTree hotel in Bemidji, was meant to give community members and landowners information about the proposed replacement of Line 3, an Enbridge oil pipeline that runs from Alberta, Canada, through northern Minnesota to Superior, Wis.

=> ↺ Yes, the Arctic’s freakishly warm winter is due to humans’ climate influence

• For the Arctic, like the globe as a whole, 2016 has been exceptionally warm. For much of the year, Arctic temperatures have been much higher than normal, and sea ice concentrations have been at record low levels.

• The Arctic’s seasonal cycle means that the lowest sea ice concentrations occur in September each year. But while September 2012 had less ice than September 2016, this year the ice coverage has not increased as expected as we moved into the northern winter. As a result, since late October, Arctic sea ice extent has been at record low levels for the time of year.

=> ↺ Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions rising, Government figures show

• The latest report card from the Environment Department shows emissions rose by 0.8 per cent for the year until June.

• The Government said the results support its climate policies.

• “These figures show that Australia’s emissions per capita and emissions per unit of GDP are now at their lowest level in 27 years,” Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg said.

• “It demonstrates that we are able to meet our climate targets without a carbon tax which Bill Shorten and the Labor Party want to bring back.”

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ How Russia surpassed Germany to become the racist ideal for Trump-loving white supremacists

• Richard Spencer, the current face (and haircut) of US’s alt-right, believes Russia is the “sole white power in the world.” David Duke, meanwhile, believes Russia holds the “key to white survival.” And as Matthew Heimbach, head of the white nationalist Traditionalist Worker Party, recently said, Russian president Vladimir Putin is the “leader of the free world”—one who has helped morph Russia into an “axis for nationalists.”

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ Internal Documents Reveal Bizarre Facebook Rules for Censorship of ‘Hate Speech’

• Facebook has come under fire after German Newspaper SZ-Magazin revealed internal secret rules of deletion that show the platform flagging up the content as hate speech if it doesn’t abide to bizarre mathematical formulas.

=> ↺ Report: Facebook Censorship Designed To Prevent ‘Exclusion’

• The documents are reportedly used by Facebook to educate content moderators on what kind of language should or shouldn’t be removed from the social network. “We remove speech that targets people on the basis of a long-standing trait that shapes their identity and ties them to a category that has been persistently discriminated against, oppressed, or exploited,” the documents read.

=> ↺ Universities are wrong to indulge student censorship

• There is a long tradition of undergraduates using their university years to explore and espouse new and sometimes stupid ideas. Indeed, that is arguably the point of a university education: exposure to different views and opinions offers an intellectual test that prepares a young mind for adult life.

• But some of the current generation of students seem intent on using the opportunities higher education offers them to close their minds rather than open them. Instead of embracing challenging ideas and thinkers, they seek to block out those ideas and exclude their authors. And sadly, some university authorities are abetting this juvenile drive to censorship. King’s College London offers a depressing example of the trend. An image of Lord Carey of Clifton, a former Archbishop of Canterbury, has been removed from a display of distinguished graduates. His deletion follows a campaign by students and others who say they were offended by Lord Carey’s opposition to gay marriage.

=> ↺ Encrypted chat app Signal circumvents government censorship

• Just days after Open Whisper Systems concluded the Egyptian government had blocked access to its encrypted messaging service, Signal, the company rolled out an update that circumvents large-scale censorship systems across Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. The update also adds the ability to apply stickers, text and doodles to images, but that’s just icing on the censorship-evading cake.

=> ↺ Ministers should leave the press ‘well alone’, former Supreme Court judge says

=> ↺ Unfair new Press laws would lead to censorship, warn peers

=> ↺ Don’t let politicians destroy Press freedom: Act NOW if you want to help defend the right to read a website like MailOnline

=> ↺ Help the press to protect freedom of speech

=> ↺ Have your say on the future of press regulation

=> ↺ New laws will silence brilliant investigative journalism

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ China Seeks Comment on Seven Draft Cybersecurity and Data Privacy National Standards

• China’s National Information Security Standardization Technical Committee (“NISSTC”), a standard-setting committee jointly supervised by the Standardization Administration of China (“SAC”) and the Cyberspace Administration of China (“CAC”), released seven draft national standards related to cybersecurity and data privacy for public comment on December 21, 2016. The public comment period runs until February 2, 2017.

=> ↺ Encrypted messaging app Signal uses Google to bypass censorship

• Developers of the popular Signal secure messaging app have started to use Google’s domain as a front to hide traffic to their service and to sidestep blocking attempts.

• Bypassing online censorship in countries where internet access is controlled by the government can be very hard for users. It typically requires the use of virtual private networking (VPN) services or complex solutions like Tor, which can be banned too.

• Open Whisper Systems, the company that develops Signal — a free, open-source app — faced this problem recently when access to its service started being censored in Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. Some users reported that VPNs, Apple’s FaceTime and other voice-over-IP apps were also being blocked.

=> ↺ Surveillance has gone too far. The jig is up

• Just as we’d resigned ourselves to the fact that the best 2016 was going to offer by the way of cheer was a new Star Wars film, and the prospect of a few mince pies and a tonne of mulled wine, Europe’s top court has given us a very welcome early Christmas present.

• For anybody with an interest in protecting democracy, privacy, freedom of expression, a free press and the safety and cybersecurity of everybody in the UK, Wednesday’s EU court of justice judgment is cause for celebration.

• In a landmark ruling – its first major post-referendum judgment involving the UK – the court ruled that our government is breaking the law by collecting all our internet and phone call records, then opening them up freely to hundreds of organisations and agencies.

• This was a challenge brought by Labour deputy leader Tom Watson (and initially Brexit minister David Davis), and represented by Liberty, to the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act (Dripa) – a temporary “emergency” law covering state surveillance, rushed on to the statute books in a matter of days in 2014.

=> ↺ Generalised data retention: a blow to mass surveillance!

• The European Court of Justice published a very important decision last 21 December, condemning the principle of generalised data retention by operators, including when mandated by Member States implementing this principle on issues linked to security or fight against crime. Data retention must be the exception and not the rule and can only be used with strong safeguards due to the very serious violation that such retention constitutes for privacy. La Quadrature du Net welcomes this very positive decision and is asking French government to acknowledge European decisions by cancelling all legislation linked to the exploitation or conservation of internet users data.

• The decision of 21 December follows a very important ECJ decision: Digital Rights Ireland. In April 2014, the ECJ invalidated the 2006 European Directive forcing Member States to organise the collection and the general retention of all connection data of European internet users. Already, the ECJ considered that this systematic retention of connection data undermined too much the right to privacy: even when not taking into account the future use of this data, the mere fact of keeping it was already a systematic breach into citizens’ lives.

=> ↺ HTTPS Deployment Growing by Leaps and Bounds: 2016 in Review

• This was a great year for adoption of HTTPS encryption for secure connections to websites.

• HTTPS is an essential technology for security and privacy on the Web, and we’ve long been asking sites to turn it on to protect their users from spying (and from censorship and tampering with site content). This year, lots of factors came together to make it happen, including ongoing news about surveillance, advances in Web server capacity, nudges from industry, government, and Web browsers, and the Let’s Encrypt certificate authority.

• By some measures, more than half of page loads in Firefox and in Chrome are now secured with HTTPS—the first time this has ever happened in the Web’s history. That’s right: for the first time ever, most pages viewed on the Web were encrypted! (As another year-in-review post will discuss, browsers are also experimenting with and rolling out stronger encryption technologies to better protect those connections.)

=> ↺ In Declassified Edward Snowden Report, Committee Walks Back Claims About ‘Intentional Lying’

• The House Intelligence Committee in September issued a three-page document alerting the public that information from its two-year investigation of former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden had turned up evidence that Snowden was a “serial exaggerator and fabricator” who exhibited a “pattern of intentional lying.”

• The executive summary of the committee’s report on Snowden was released one day after large advocacy groups launched a campaign asking President Barack Obama for a pardon, arguing Snowden’s leaks about mass surveillance were in the public interest.

• The committee’s message was clear: a pardon would be undeserved, as Snowden arguably harmed national security and did so while falsely portraying himself as a whistleblower, when in fact he was a habitual liar and a disgruntled employee.

=> ↺ US government starts asking foreign travelers to disclose their social media accounts

• The US Customs and Border Protection has started demanding that foreign travelers hand over Facebook, Twitter, and other social media account information upon entering the country, according to a report from Politico. The new policy follows a proposal laid out back in June and applies only to those travelers who enter the US temporarily without a visa through the Electronic System for Travel Authorization, or ESTA, process. The goal, the government says, is to “identify potential threats,” a spokesperson tells Politico.

=> ↺ Google Employee Sues Company Over “Internal Spying Program”

• A man who worked at Google as a product manager in its Nest division is now suing the company over what he and his lawyer describe as an internal “spying program.”

• The former employee says that internal policies and confidentiality agreements encourage Google employees to report colleagues who they suspect of leaking information to the media.

• According to tech news site The Information, who first reported on the lawsuit, Google has set up a special website where employees can report each other.

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ Philippines journalist killed after criticising officials over illegal drug lab

• A Philippine provincial newspaper publisher has been shot dead after writing a column alleging official negligence over a recently discovered methamphetamine laboratory, in the first killing of a journalist during the country’s war on drugs.

• The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) condemned Monday’s murder of Larry Que, publisher of a news site on the island of Catanduanes, and said it “challenged” President Rodrigo Duterte to find the perpetrators and utilise a special task force he set up to protect media.

=> ↺ Missouri dooms countless children to the school-to-prison pipeline

• In a move that will likely doom countless children to the school-to-prison pipeline, Missouri will soon charge students who get into fights with felonies.

• A state statute that goes into effect on Jan. 1 will no longer treat fights in schools or buses as a minor offense, regardless of a young person’s age or grade. Instead, School Resource Officers (SROs) and local law enforcement will now intervene by arresting and charging them with assault in the third degree — a Class E felony. That type of assault can result in four years of prison time, fines, or probation. Attempts or threats to cause harm will be treated as a Class A misdemeanor, which can lead to a year of prison time. If law enforcement or school officials consider the assaulted person a “special victim,” a student can be charged with a Class D felony that comes with a maximum prison term of seven years.

Intellectual Monopolies

Copyrights

=> ↺ Publishing Lobbyists Suck Up To Trump With Lies About Copyright, Ask Him To Kill DMCA Safe Harbors

• With the Donald Trump administration fully taking shape, lobbyists for basically every industry (yes, including tech and internet companies) are groveling before the President with whatever their pet projects are. The latest to put together a letter is the Association of American Publishers, via its top lobbyist Allan Adler. You may recall Adler from a few years ago, in which he explained why his organization opposed a copyright treaty for the blind, noting that his members were upset about the idea of ever including user rights in international treaties, and only wanted to see international agreements that focused on stronger copyright protections. So, you get a sense of where he’s coming from.

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