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● 03.15.17

● Links 15/3/2017: Desktop GNU/Linux Praises, X.Org Server 1.19.3 Released

Posted in News Roundup at 7:26 pm by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

Desktop

=> ↺ Desktop Linux the best it’s ever been—and keeps getting better

• While users of proprietary operating systems suffer with new, slower, buggier, more spy-filled systems, Linux users are enjoying better performance and more support.

=> ↺ 7 Ways You Can Use Linux to Organize Your Life

• Many people have taken to using smartphones to keep their lives in order, but not you! You have a system in place that you’ve perfected over years, and your laptop or desktop remains your primary means of keeping everything in order. But now you’re switching to Linux, and you want to know what’s out there.

• Linux may not have the same apps you’ve grown accustomed to, but there’s no shortage of software that can help you keep track of everything. Whether it’s juggling dates or managing your finances, Linux has plenty of tools to organize your life. Here’s a taste, one category at a time.

=> ↺ Microsoft is disgustingly sneaky: Windows 10 isn’t an operating system, it’s an advertising platform

=> ↺ camera, keyboard, and/or mic

• Windows 10 is not an operating system. Oh, sure, it has many features that make it look like an operating system, but in reality it is nothing more than a vehicle for advertisements.

Kernel Space

=> ↺ Linux Kernel 4.10.3 Released with Better Graphics Drivers, s390 and x86 Fixes

• Coming only three days after the release of Linux kernel 4.10.2, the third maintenance update to the Linux 4.10 kernel series was announced by Greg Kroah-Hartman a few moments ago.

=> ↺ Linux 4.4.54

• I’m announcing the release of the 4.4.54 kernel.

• All users of the 4.4 kernel series must upgrade.

Graphics Stack

=> ↺ X.Org Server 1.19.3 Improves Driver Support by Reverting Page-Flipping Change

• Adam Jackson announced a few moments ago the immediate availability of the third point release to the X.Org Server 1.19 display server stable series for GNU/Linux distributions.

=> ↺ X.Org Server 1.19.3 Released

=> ↺ 2017 GDC Khronos/Vulkan Videos Now Available

• The Khronos session videos from this year’s Game Developers’ Conference (GDC 17) are now available online.

=> ↺ Future Vulkan Work Items: Advanced Compute, Improved HLSL Interop

=> ↺ Mesa 13.0.6 Is Being Prepared For Release With Many Backported Changes

• Mesa release manager Emil Velikov is arranging to release Mesa 13.0.6 in the days ahead.

• Linux gamers and enthusiasts should really be running Mesa 17.0 if you don’t want to risk running Mesa 17.1-devel Git, but for those still on Mesa 13, it’s continuing to receive fixes. There are more than one hundred patches queued under their new stable nomination scheme for getting fixes backported to current Mesa stable series.

=> ↺ An On-Disk Cache Is Coming To The RADV Vulkan Driver

=> ↺ RADV Now Advertises Vulkan 1.0.42; Shader Cache Thread Queue Lands In Mesa

Applications

=> ↺ Battery Monitor – A Simple Tool That Notifies User About Charging, Discharging, Not Charging, and Low Battery State

• Battery Monitor is a simple utility tool developed on Python3 and PyGtk3. It will notify (plays a sound and pops up a notification bubble) user about charging, discharging, not charging and critically low battery state of the battery on Linux (If battery is present).

=> ↺ Battery Monitor app for Ubuntu now lets you create custom alerts

=> ↺ YunoHost : An All-in-one Debian-based Server For Self-hosting

• YunoHost is an all-in-one server operating system based on Debian. It is primarily designed for making self-hosting accessible to everyone. Using YunoHost, you can easily host your own mail server, web server, LDAP server, DNS server, backup server, CMS platform such as wordpress, or anything and everything easily with few mouse clicks. You can host it either on your home server or any VPS. It is completely free and open source. The source code is available in GitHub.

=> ↺ ScudCloud – An Unofficial Linux Desktop Client App for Slack

• ScudCloud is an unofficial Linux desktop client app for the popular instant messaging and collaboration app, Slack.

• It has a typical Ubuntu UI and its best integration with the Unity desktop but it will work just as well in any of the other popular desktops e.g. Gnome and KDE.

Proprietary

=> ↺ Google Earth Pro Installation Requirements for PC, Mac and Linux

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ zypper (and rpm) says: “warning: Unsupported version of key: V3”

=> ↺ How to start, stop, and restart services in Linux

=> ↺ Practical Guide: Linux scp example

=> ↺ How to check if package is installed on Linux

=> ↺ Record a Screencast with the EasyScreenCast extension

=> ↺ How to Access Secure Shell (SSH) Servers Through Standard Web Browsers

=> ↺ Orchestrate CockroachDB with Kubernetes

=> ↺ Testing Simple Scripts in a Docker Container

=> ↺ Linux Academy Rolls Out New Cloud-Based Training Platform

=> ↺ Amid Shortages in Apache Spark Skillsets, Training Options Proliferate

=> ↺ Learn Java Programming with 9 Excellent Open-Source Books

=> ↺ How to restart service in Linux

=> ↺ How to: linux add user to group

=> ↺ Create beautiful ASCII text banners in Linux

Games

=> ↺ Hyper Knights, a surprisingly fun and cheap mix of strategy and action

=> ↺ Editorial: On paying for Linux games when you already have a Windows version

• There were a few loud users complaining about a recent Linux release where you had to pay for the Linux version on Steam, even if you already own the Windows version. I’ve spoken to a few people and have some thoughts on it.

• First of all: I fully agree porters should be paid for their hard work, that’s absolutely not in question at all. It’s a reason why I so heavily dislike grey-market key resellers. If you do the work — you should be paid.

=> ↺ Wednesday Madness, a quick look at some good Linux gaming deals

• Another quick look at some good deals you shouldn’t pass up!

=> ↺ Fossil Echo, an adventure game about a boy’s wordless journey is now on Linux

• I only wrote about signs of Fossil Echo [Steam] finally coming to Linux yesterday, but it has already seen a release!

=> ↺ Full Throttle Remastered to release on April 18th, pre-orders exclusive to GOG

=> ↺ The third and final chapter of upcoming point-and-click adventure ‘The Journey Down’ now has a release date

=> ↺ The sequel of the free visual adventure ‘Disturbed’ is announced on Steam Greenlight; it needs votes

Desktop Environments/WMs

=> ↺ MATE Desktop 1.18 Released, Is Now GTK3 Only

• MATE Desktop 1.18 is now available to download. The release completes the migration to GTK3, and adds a splash of improvements to many of its core apps.

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

=> ↺ Latte Dock for KDE Desktops Is a Slick Plasma Panel Replacement

• I rarely (if ever) see dock apps running on KDE desktops — but that could be about to change. Latte Dock is a new desktop dock for KDE. Think Plank but for Plasma. It’s more than an app launcher too as it can act as a total Plasma panel replacement.

=> ↺ The KDE Ball Widget Bounces Back to Life

• Some of you may have read (and were no doubt left rather bemused by) my recent misty-eyed reminisce about the bouncy ball widget that KDE used to ship with.

=> ↺ digiKam 5.5.0 Open-Source Photo Management App Released with Many Improvements

• The development team behind the digiKam Software Collection project, an open-source initiative to offer a free, powerful and cross-platform image editor and organizer application, announced the release of digiKam 5.5.0.

GNOME Desktop/GTK

=> ↺ Approaching 3.24

• So, we have just entered code freeze approaching the GNOME 3.24 release, which is scheduled for next week.

=> ↺ Under the hood: Runtimes

• Now that 3.24 is almost here, I want to take a little downtime and write some information about pieces of the design underneath Builder. Today, let’s lift the hood and take a look at Runtimes.

• In Builder, an IdeRuntime is an abstraction around an environment to run programs. That could be build tooling, SDK management, your application, unit tests, and more. Unsurprisingly, it’s naming is similar to Flatpak runtimes because they have a very 1:1 relationship in the Flatpak plugin. But it’s not an uncommon term by any means.

=> ↺ GNOME Shell and Mutter Get More Wayland Improvements for GNOME 3.24 Desktop

• GNOME Project’s Florian Müllner announced the availability of the Release Candidate (RC) versions of the forthcoming GNOME Shell 3.24 and Mutter 3.24 components of the GNOME 3.24 desktop environment.

Distributions

New Releases

=> ↺ Chakra 2017.03 “Goedel” released

• We are excited to announce the first Chakra release of 2017, codenamed Goedel, to honor the logician, mathematician and philosopher Kurt Goedel.

• The 2017.03 release introduces two noteworthy changes: - The installer, Calamares, has been updated to version 3.0.1.91. As a result, users are now able to install Chakra on btrfs and LUKS encrypted partitions. Calamares has received lots of partitioning enhancements and bug fixes since our previous ISO release and the installation process should be smoother than ever.

=> ↺ Chakra GNU/Linux 2017.03 “Goedel” Released to Support LUKS Encrypted Partitions

• Neofytos Kolokotronis from the Chakra GNU/Linux distribution was proud to announce a few moments ago the release and immediate availability of the Chakra GNU/Linux 2017.03 “Goedel.”

• Dubbed Goedel, in the memory of the mathematician, philosopher, and logician Kurt Goedel, Chakra GNU/Linux 2017.03 is the first ISO snapshot of the KDE Plasma oriented distribution originally based on Arch Linux. The new release comes with a revamped Heritage theme and the Calamares installer with support for LUKS encrypted partitions.

Screenshots/Screencasts

=> ↺ Parrot Security OS 3.5 Improves Linux Security Tools Distribution

Slackware Family

=> ↺ You Can Now Install Linux Kernel 4.10.2 on Slackware, Slax, Zenwalk, and SlackEX

• GNU/Linux developer Arne Exton released this past weekend a new custom kernel for Slackware and Slackware-based distributions, based on the recently released Linux 4.10.2 kernel.

=> ↺ SlackEX Distro Is Based on Slackware 14.2 and KDE 4.14.27, Uses Linux 4.10.2

• After announcing the availability of a custom Linux 4.10.2 kernel for Slackware 14.2 and Slackware-based distributions like Slax, Zenwalk, and SlackEX, developer Arne Exton informs us today about the release of SlackEX Build 170314.

• SlackEX Build 170314 is the latest ISO snapshot of the Slackware derivative, and, as expected, it ships with the same Linux 4.10.2 kernel that you can also download and install on your Slackware or Slackware-based operating system. The previous SlackEX Live ISO image was using a kernel from the now deprecated Linux 4.7 series.

Red Hat Family

Finance

=> ↺ Investors are Looking at Levels for Red Hat Inc (RHT)

=> ↺ Top Stocks on the Move: Red Hat, Inc. (RHT), Analog Devices, Inc. (ADI)

=> ↺ Analysts mean rating score stands at 2.00 while Red Hat, Inc.’s (RHT) stock price is now at $82.58: Stock Buzzer

=> ↺ Pacific Crest Reiterates Overweight Rating for Red Hat Inc (RHT)

=> ↺ Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE:RHT): How technical signals have emerged?

Debian Family

=> ↺ 7 Reasons to Use Debian (and 3 Reasons Not To)

• In twenty-four years, Debian has gone from one of half a dozen leading distributions to the premier representative of Linux. Its derivatives Linux Mint and Ubuntu are the most popular distributions today, and new security and server distributions are likely to be based on Debian itself.

Derivatives

Canonical/Ubuntu

=> ↺ Canonical extends Ubuntu 12.04 support for paying customers

• I was bemused recently when I wrote a story about essential Linux server commands only to have people complain about my covering older init and run-level technology instead of the controversial but popular systemd. This newer way of booting Linux systems became popular in 2015. Unfortunately, some readers fail to understand that a feature that’s been deployed for two years means nothing for server operating system lifespans.

=> ↺ Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Reaches End of Life on April 28, Users Can Purchase ESM Updates

• After receiving five years of support, the Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (Precise Pangolin) operating system is finally reaching its end of life next month, on April 28, 2017, according to Canonical’s Adam Conrad.

• Announced on April 26, 2012, Ubuntu 12.04 LTS was dubbed by Mark Shuttleworth as the “Precise Pangolin.” It shipped with the Linux 3.2.12 kernel, GNOME 3.4.1 desktop environment, X.Org 7.6, X.Org Server 1.11.4, Upstart 1.5, both Python 2.7.3 and 3.2.3, GCC 4.6.3, as well as the Unity 5.10 2D and 3D interfaces.

=> ↺ Ubuntu 12.04 Extended Security Maintenance announced

=> ↺ Say Goodbye To Windows Vista And Ubuntu 12.04, Support Ends In April 2017

=> ↺ Ubuntu 12.04 (Precise Pangolin) reaches End of Life on April 28 2017

• … Ubuntu 12.04 will reach end of life on Friday, April 28th.

=> ↺ Ubuntu 12.04 ESM Throws LTS Users a Lifeline

=> ↺ Canonical preps security lifeboat, yells: Ubuntu 12.04 hold-outs, get in

=> ↺ Canonical Offers Extended Security for Ubuntu 12.04

=> ↺ Ubuntu 17.04 — Official Mascot Artwork Revealed

• With its stable release now under a month away, Canonical has revealed the official mascot artwork for Ubuntu 17.04 ‘Zesty Zapus’.

• In keeping with previous Ubuntu mascots the new Zesty Zapus graphic resembles a folded paper mouse.

• Created by the Canonical design team, the official Zesty Zapus graphic will appear in Ubuntu 17.04 desktop documentation and show up on merchandise, like the traditional official release t-shirt, and event banners.

Flavours and Variants

=> ↺ Ubuntu-Based Black Lab Linux Gets New Weekly Build with Linux 4.8, Unity Desktop

• Another week, another weekly build of the Ubuntu-based Black Lab Linux operating system is available for download, as Black Lab Software Robert J. Dohnert informed Softpedia.

=> ↺ Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE 2 Betsy) Gets Updated ISO Images, Download Now

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ Colibri COM offers WiFi, Bluetooth, and a new i.MX6 ULL SoC

• Toradex unveiled a Linux-driven Colibri module with NXP’s i.MX6 ULL SoC that offers industrial temperature support and dual-band WiFi-ac and BT 4.2/BLE.

• Toradex has revealed preliminary specs — but so far no photo — of its Colibri iMX6ULL — the first of Toradex’s 67.6 x 36.7mm Colibri modules to offer onboard wireless. It’s also the first embedded board we’ve seen that features NXP’s new cost-optimized version of the i.MX6 UL (UltraLite) called the i.MX6 ULL. The module will ship in the third quarter.

=> ↺ How to write SD cards for the Raspberry Pi

• Writing SD cards for the Raspberry Pi is something that every member of the Pi community has attempted. Some are old hats and tackle the task with aplomb, but for some it strikes fear into their hearts.

• In this article, I look at two different ways to write an SD card. First using the latest application to offer a simple GUI, Etcher. Then, I take a look at dcfldd, a Linux terminal command that expands on the popular dd command and offers much more functionality.

=> ↺ How to build an IoT project with Mongoose OS

• It could be a small single-board computer like the Raspberry Pi, which costs around US $30, BeagleBone for approximately US $60, Intel Edison for US $70, or other similar devices. These computers usually run Linux. These are suitable for some tasks, like being a gateway device, but again they are quite large, very power hungry, and too expensive to run on things like sensors, wearables, and small appliances.

=> ↺ A Look at MINIBIAN: A Minimalist Image for Raspberry Pi

• My way of celebrating Pi Day (March 14th = 3.14) was to take a look at an awesome little image for the Raspberry Pi called Minibian. A new edition of Minibian was released on 12 March 2017, updating the image with support for the latest RPi 3B and other improvements.

• Minibian is based on and fully compatible with the official Raspbian “Jesse” software. It is meant to be used for embedded linux and server type situations, and that is great for IoT scenarios. There is no desktop environment and much effort has gone to providing a minimalist operating system that conserves system resources. The 12 March release of Minibian boasts a 15 second boot time, 31 MB of RAM usage, 477 MB of disk space usage, and is small enough to fit on a 1GB SD card. My test install and inspection of Minibian shows that these claims are indeed correct.

=> ↺ Tough, 84 x 55mm Intel Atom COM offers soldered memory

• Eurotech’s rugged, Linux-friendly “CPU-163-15” is an 84 x 55mm COM Express Type 10 Mini module with Bay Trail Atoms and soldered ECC and eMMC.

• Eurotech’s Intel Atom E3800 “Bay Trail” based CPU-163-15 COM Express Type 10 Mini module continues the Amaro, Italy based company’s tradition of offering rugged embedded boards with support for its cloud-based Everyware Software Framework (ESF) IoT platform. Other recent Intel-based COM Express modules from Eurotech include the CPU-161-18, a headless COM Express Type 6 Compact module with a 12-core Xeon-D1500 from the Broadwell generation.

Phones

Android

=> ↺ BQ Deutschland releases Android 7.1.1 OTA for the Aquaris X5 Plus (while most of us still haven’t received 7.0)

Free Software/Open Source

=> ↺ Life of free software project

• During last week I’ve noticed several interesting posts about challenges being free software maintainer. After being active in open source for 16 years I can share much of the feelings I’ve read and I can also share my dealings with the things.

• [...]

• Obviously if you can not cope with the work, let’s find more people to do the work. Unfortunately it’s not that easy. Sometimes people come by, contribute few patches, but it’s not that easy to turn them into regular contributor. You should encourage them to stay and to care about the part of the project they have touched.

• You can try to attract completely new contributors through programs as Google Summer of Code (GSoC) or Outreachy, but that has it’s own challenges as well.

• With phpMyAdmin we’re participating regularly in GSoC (we’ve only missed last year as we were not chosen by Google that year) and it indeed helps to bring new people on the board. Many of them even stay around your project (currently 3 of 5 phpMyAdmin team members are former GSoC students). But I think this approach really works only for bigger organizations.

=> ↺ Nine Funny Quotes about Free and Open Source Software

• Open source programmers are celebrated for the software they create. But they don’t often get the credit they deserve for one trait: Being funny. With that in mind, here’s a list of some of the more entertaining statements made by members of the free and open source software community.

=> ↺ 6 Operational Challenges to Using Open Source Software

• In today’s rapidly evolving markets, companies that consistently innovate, most quickly and at the least cost, will win. And, as you’ve seen in our ongoing series, using Open Source Software (OSS) enables rapid, low-cost innovation. But it can also introduce operational challenges and legal risks.

• We’re at a point now that OSS has become such a mainstream phenomenon that not using open source almost certainly places your organization at a disadvantage. So you must learn how to navigate the challenges and risks in order to remain competitive.

=> ↺ GitLab acquires software chat startup Gitter, will open-source the code

• GitLab, a startup that provides open source and premium source code repository software that people use to collaborate on software, is announcing today that it has acquired Gitter, a startup that provides chat rooms that are attached to repositories of code so that collaborators can exchange messages. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.

• Gitter has popped up more and more on GitHub, which is arguably GitLab’s biggest competitor. But Gitter chat rooms are also sprinkled throughout GitLab. For example, a repository for a command-line interface (CLI) for talking on Gitter itself has a Gitter chat room.

=> ↺ GitLab Acquired The Chat App Gitter And Plans To Open Source It

• Today GitLab announced that it has acquired the chat app Gitter that many communities use for communication. Also, many Laravel sub-communities use it as well, and you can find these through the Gitter Laravel Tag

Events

=> ↺ Solving Monitoring in the Cloud With Prometheus

• Hundreds of companies are now using the open source Prometheus monitoring solution in production, across industries ranging from telecommunications and cloud providers to video streaming and databases.

=> ↺ An Exploration of Citrix Delivery Networks

• While many of us may be more familiar with the virtualization and remote access products from Citrix, Danny Phillips was talking about their products in the networking space during his keynote presentation at LinuxCon Europe.

Web Browsers

Chrome

=> ↺ Chromium Adds Support For Animated PNGs

• Google’s Chrome/Chromium web-browser is introducing support for animated PNGs (APNG).

Mozilla

=> ↺ Five issues that will determine the future of Internet Health

• In January, we published our first Internet Health Report on the current state and future of the Internet. In the report, we broke down the concept of Internet health into five issues. Today, we are publishing issue briefs about each of them: online privacy and security, decentralization, openness, web literacy and digital inclusion. These issues are the building blocks to a healthy and vibrant Internet. We hope they will be a guide and resource to you.

• We live in a complex, fast moving, political environment. As policies and laws around the world change, we all need to help protect our shared global resource, the Internet. Internet health shouldn’t be a partisan issue, but rather, a cause we can all get behind. And our choices and actions will affect the future health of the Internet, for better or for worse.

Databases

=> ↺ [PostgreSQL] Parallel Query v2

• A recent Twitter poll asked What is your favorite upcoming feature of PostgreSQL V10? In this admittedly unscientific survey, “better parallelism” (37%) beat out “logical replication” (32%) and “native partitioning” (31%). I think it’s fruitless to argue about which of those features is actually most important; the real point is that all of those are amazing features, and PostgreSQL 10 is on track to be an amazing release. There are a number of already-committed or likely-to-be-committed features which in any other release would qualify as headline features, but in this release they’ll have to fight it out with the ones mentioned above.

Pseudo-Open Source (Openwashing)

=> ↺ Security in the Age of Open Source

=> ↺ Micrososft-funded proxy Black Duck

=> ↺ Meet Microsoft, the New Face of Open Source Data Center Hardware

=> ↺ Microsoft is an anti-Open Source bully

=> ↺ Why Splunk keeps beating open source competitors

• All essential data infrastructure these days is open source. Or rather, nearly all — Splunk, the log analysis tool, remains stubbornly, happily proprietary. Despite a sea of competitors, the best of them open source, Splunk continues to generate mountains of cash.

=> ↺ AstTECS launches open source CRM

=> ↺ StreamAnalytix 3.0 Supports Apache Spark-Based Batch Processing

=> ↺ Impetus Technologies Announces StreamAnalytix 3.0 Featuring Support for Apache Spark-Based Batch Processing

BSD

=> ↺ A Penguin tries FreeBSD as a desktop operating system

• A Penguin tries FreeBSD 11.0 RELEASE on an old i386 PC as his main desktop operating system, for the first time, for a weekend.

• The story begins, you guess, with the operating system installation using the FreeBSD i386 hybrid image in order to boot a USB key.

=> ↺ openbsd changes of note 7

=> ↺ NetBSD 7.1 released

• The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce NetBSD 7.1, the first feature update of the NetBSD 7 release branch. It represents a selected subset of fixes deemed important for security or stability reasons, as well as new features and enhancements.

=> ↺ NetBSD 7.1 Released, Brings Initial Nouveau DRM & Better Linux Compatibility

• NetBSD 7.1 was released today as the newest version of this popular BSD operating system known for its portability across many CPU architectures.

• WIth NetBSD 7.1, it’s the project’s first release to include the Nouveau DRM/KMS driver ported from the Linux kernel for having open-source NVIDIA graphics support. However, this Nouveau support in NetBSD 7.1 is disabled by default.

=> ↺ iXsystems Launches FreeNAS Corral, an Open Source Solution for Building Hyper-converged Infrastructures

• In addition to the new name for FreeNAS 10, iXsystems introduced the new FreeNAS Corral logo and logomark.

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

=> ↺ (Emacs) Bug report statistics on OS and arch

• If I tell you that one person is responsible for 10% of the 18500 Emacs bug reports over the past 9 years (next most enthusiastic is me with 2%), you can see that this effect can be significant.

=> ↺ FSFE Newsletter – March 2017

Programming/Development

=> ↺ Happy IDEs of March: Which code editor do you prefer?

• Welcome to the Ides of March, or as we’d like to call it, the IDEs of March. To celebrate, we’re asking our readers to let us know which code editing tool they prefer, whether a full-fledged integrated development environment or a simple text editor. Fortunately, there are tons of open source options out there for you to choose from. Which one is your favorite?

=> ↺ There’s More to Life Than Code: How to Keep Your Team Engaged

• She found that her engineers actually were most productive when they not only felt like they were part of an engineering team, but when they felt like they were a part of the entire company. When Rent The Runway created cross-functional teams — with people from all departments working together to solve single problems — her engineers were at their happiest and most productive.

=> ↺ Teaching Children to Code

• Two experiences in my life have shaped the way I try to talk about technology. One was over ten years ago when I taught a room full of retirees, long-term unemployed, and recent immigrants basic computer skills. I realized that I could throw many of the subjects I had studied out of the window and that the best way to teach people was to give them a reason to learn. Fast forward to last year (and a subject I wrote previously on SitePoint) when I taught programming to a group of recent Syrian refugees. Again, I had to throw away much of my own learning and preconceptions and think afresh.

Leftovers

=> ↺ Best social media analytics tools 2017: Eight of the best tools for social media analytics

=> ↺ Is This The Future Of Online Publishing? Leading Chinese Social Networks Add Paid-For Content

• One of the topics that generates strong feelings in the online world is adblocking. Many users love it, but many publishers hate it. That’s a big problem, because advertising has turned into the main way of funding what appears on the Internet. As adblockers become more common, so the advertising revenue available to pay for creating articles, images, sound and video diminishes. Some want to ban adblockers, but that’s hardly a solution: forcing visitors to your site to view ads they hate is not a good way to foster a long-term business relationship. Improving ads seems a better approach, but that’s easier said than done, and may come too late now that so many people have installed adblockers.

Security

=> ↺ Red Hat Product Security Risk Report 2016

• At Red Hat, our dedicated Product Security team analyzes threats and vulnerabilities against all our products and provides relevant advice and updates through the Red Hat Customer Portal. Customers can rely on this expertise to help them quickly address the issues that can cause high risks and avoid wasting time or effort on those that don’t.

=> ↺ Google Eliminates Android Adfraud Botnet Chamois

• Google removed a handful of malicious apps from its Play marketplace recently that were found manipulating ad traffic, sending premium text messages, and downloading additional plugins.

=> ↺ Google deploys flamethrower on Android ad-fraud apps

=> ↺ New Linux Malware attacks AVTech IOT devices

• A new malware that targets Linux-based Internet of Things (IoT) devices has been detected by Search-Lab, a Security research and development firm. This Linux ARM malware called as ELF_IMEIJ.A exploits a vulnerability in devices from AVTech, a surveillance technology company.

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ This troubled, covert agency is responsible for trucking nuclear bombs across America each day

• The unmarked 18-wheelers ply the nation’s interstates and two-lane highways, logging 3 million miles a year hauling the most lethal cargo there is: nuclear bombs.

• The covert fleet, which shuttles warheads from missile silos, bomber bases and submarine docks to nuclear weapons labs across the country, is operated by the Office of Secure Transportation, a troubled agency within the U.S. Department of Energy so cloaked in secrecy that few people outside the government know it exists.

• The $237-million-a-year agency operates a fleet of 42 tractor-trailers, staffed by highly armed couriers, many of them veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, responsible for making sure nuclear weapons and components pass through foggy mountain passes and urban traffic jams without incident.

Transparency/Investigative Reporting

=> ↺ Recognizing the Year’s Worst in Government Transparency

• A thick fog is rolling in over Sunshine Week (March 12-18), the annual event when government transparency advocates raise awareness about the importance of access to public records. We are entering an age when officials at the highest levels seek to discredit critical reporting with “alternative facts,” “fake news” slurs, and selective access to press conferences—while making their own claims without providing much in the way to substantiate them.

• But no matter how much the pundits claim we’re entering a “post-truth” era, it is crucial we defend the idea of proof. Proof is in the bureaucratic paper trails. Proof is in the accounting ledgers, the legal memos, the audits, and the police reports. Proof is in the data. When it comes to government actions, that proof is often obtained by leveraging laws like the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and state-level public records laws—except when government officials seek to ignore the rules to suppress evidence.

Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

=> ↺ Scientists Are Racing to Prevent a Total Wipeout of the World’s Coral Reefs

• The world has lost roughly half its coral reefs in the last 30 years. Scientists are now scrambling to ensure that at least a fraction of these unique ecosystems survives beyond the next three decades. The health of the planet depends on it: Coral reefs support a quarter of all marine species, as well as half a billion people around the world.

• “This isn’t something that’s going to happen 100 years from now. We’re losing them right now,”

=> ↺ Scientists to EPA head: You don’t know what you’re talking about

• In sum, the letters argue that Pruitt’s statement was wrong on multiple levels. We can measure the impact of humanity on the climate, and there’s not much reasonable scientific controversy over that or the results, which clearly show humanity’s impact. Continuing the analysis is obviously critical, but there’s not much point in continuing debates that, by any reasonable standard of evidence, should have ended years ago.

Finance

=> ↺ Theresa May is dragging the UK under. This time Scotland must cut the rope

• Here is the question the people of Scotland will face in the next independence referendum: when England falls out of the boat like a block of concrete, do you want your foot tied to it?

• It would be foolish to deny that there are risks in leaving the United Kingdom. Scotland’s economy is weak, not least because it has failed to wean itself off North Sea oil. There are major questions, not yet resolved, about the currency it would use; its trading relationship with the rump of the UK; and its association with the European Union, which it’s likely to try to rejoin.

=> ↺ Donald Trump tax: Leaked 2005 document reveals $38m bill

• US President Donald Trump paid $38m (£31m) in tax on more than $150m (£123m) income in 2005, a leaked partial tax return shows.

=> ↺ Brexit and the new British Constitution

• The set out of a text book on the ‘British Constitution’ used to be straightforward.

• (And yes, the British do have a constitution, it just is not codified. There is a descriptive answer to the question: how is Britain constituted?)

• After the various chapters on the executive, legislature, judiciary, local government, nationalised industries, the police, and so on, there would perhaps be a short chapter on Scotland and Northern Ireland.

• Wales would have an index entry which said ‘for Wales, see Scotland and Northern Ireland‘.

=> ↺ The Disappearing Prime Minister

• I was delighted by Nicola Sturgeon’s announcement today, both the content and the manner of her making it.

• I am unsure why she put the window for the referendum as far back as autumn 2018 to spring 2019. Autumn 2018 is fine but spring 2019 is late – Nicola Sturgeon spoke of Scotland needing to declare its choice for independence before the UK actually leaves the EU or very shortly thereafter. But very shortly thereafter is too late. In diplomatic terms, a miss is a good as a mile here and in diplomatic terms at the EU, negotiating to get back in will be much harder than negotiating to remain a part of the EU.

=> ↺ Brexit and the UK Parliament

• Nothing illustrates the atrophy of Parliament more persuasively than the fact that the debates regarding the scope of parliamentary sovereignty in Miller began in the courts and affirmed a sovereignty that Parliament was unwilling or unable to claim for itself via Parliamentary process. If Parliament cannot reform itself internally as Stein Ringen calls for in openDemocracy there is a need for an extra-parliamentary movement for a codified constitution which would include the reform of the House of Lords, entrenchment of social and economic rights, a more proportional system of election and a transparent process for any citizen to raise their constitutional concerns via petitioning a constitutional court.

=> ↺ Donald Trump set to completely scrap US consumer protection agency, says man expected to lead it

• Mr Neugebauer said his meeting with Mr Trump included discussions about deregulating financial markets and gutting the CFPB.

=> ↺ Uber: the illusion of growth

• It’s no secret that Uber is haemorrhaging money.

• [...]

• Instead of Uber’s pockets being lined by the hard toil of its drivers, the company is eating through investment from venture capitalists to keep its low-fare strategy going.

=> ↺ NYT Sees Fed on Collision Course With Trump–for Doing What Trump Said to Do

• By failing to remind readers of Trump’s stance on interest rates during the campaign, the Times is doing the president two big favors. One is the pretense that his economic proposals are coherent, which they are not. The other is that they allow him to point to the Fed as a scapegoat when his promises of spectacular economic growth fail to materialize: It will be Janet Yellen’s fault, for raising interest rates like he told her to.

=> ↺ Danish shipping company uses blockchain in IBM partnership

• Maersk and IBM test out the application of blockchain technology to track and manage the paper trail of shipping containers around the world

• IBM and Danish shipping giant Maersk are using blockchain technology to digitise transactions in the global shipping industry.

=> ↺ Donald Trump Isn’t Even Pretending to Oppose Goldman Sachs Anymore

• The continuity of Wall Street’s dominant role in American politics — regardless of what party sits in power or how reviled the financial industry finds itself across the country — was perhaps never more evident than when Jake Siewert, now a Goldman Sachs spokesperson, on Tuesday praised the selection of Jim Donovan, a Goldman Sachs managing director, for the No. 2 position in the Treasury Department under Steve Mnuchin, himself a former Goldman Sachs partner.

• “Jim is smart, extraordinarily versatile, and as hard-working as they come,” Siewert gushed. “He’ll be an invaluable addition to the economic team.”

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ Donald Trump, Movie Buff and Apparent Time Traveler, Can’t Get Over WWII

• Victory at Sea remains a cinematic expression of our war-making past. If you really want to understand President Trump’s strategic mindset (such as it is), get your hands on a DVD of the series and watch it

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ Germany threatens £44m fines for social media firms that fail to remove offensive content

• The newly-announced measures will also require that the likes of Facebook, Google and Twitter delete offending material within a week, illegal material (such as posts containing racist material) within 24 hours, and run 24-hour helplines to help concerned users.

=> ↺ Germany threatens to fine social media companies €50m for hate speech and fake news

• If the measures pass into law it will require social media companies to employ staff that monitor content around the clock. Individual members of staff responsible for handling complaints could also be fined up to €5 million for failing to comply with the regulations.

=> ↺ NY Legislators Looking At Installing A Free Speech-Stomping ‘Right To Be Forgotten’

• There’s nothing like being negatively compared to Arizona (remember the short-lived “First Amendment-protected activity is against the law” bill?) to take the gloss off the latest legislative ridiculousness. A new bill in the state legislature would make New York an outlier in constitutional protections (or no, it wouldn’t, because it wouldn’t survive a constitutional challenge, but for the sake of argument…). For no conceivable reason, the bill seeks to implement a New York-located “right to be forgotten.” How that’s supposed to work out when it’s not the law in the other 49 states remains unexplained.

=> ↺ Mob Censorship on Campus

• In today’s political climate, there are sharp divisions of opinion over a range of issues, from health care and climate change to education and labor law. Ideally, a civil debate undertaken with mutual respect could ease tension and advance knowledge. Politics, however, often takes a very different turn.

• One of the landmark decisions of the United States Supreme Court, New York Times v. Sullivan, was decided in 1964 at the height of civil rights movement. Writing for the majority, Justice William Brennan insisted that the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech rested on “a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.” He then concluded that the First Amendment offered extensive protection to the media from defamation suits brought by private individuals—a principle that was later extended to apply to public figures as well. Defamation suits in his view could chill public debate.

=> ↺ PIO censorship in the era of Trump

• President Trump has already labeled major press outlets the “fake news media” and the “enemy of the people.” His administration has blocked major news outlets from a briefing because it didn’t like what they published.

• With that in mind, the public should understand “censorship by PIO” at the federal level: For years, in many federal agencies, staff members have been prohibited from communicating with any journalist without notifying the authorities, usually the public information officers. And they often are unable to talk without PIO guards actively monitoring them.

=> ↺ Letter: When censorship is effective

• Spicer is not a minister of propaganda; he is employed as a spokesman for our delusional president and must try to twist Trump’s wild statements into more reasonable language. His performance is painful to watch. The worst I can say about him is that he lacks personal honor.

=> ↺ Japan Foundation slammed for allowing ‘censorship’ at art exhibition (VIDEO)

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ DOJ Argues For iPhone Hack Secrecy By Contradicting Statements Made By The DOJ

• Someone’s assertions are wrong. Either the DOJ was lying when it said it would only work on certain iPhones, or it’s lying now to protect its secrecy by implying the purchased exploit is usable on other iPhones.

• The DOJ clarified last spring the exploit affected any iPhone 5c and wasn’t limited to those running iOS9. But even if that clarification is applied to its arguments in this lawsuit, this paragraph stills points to someone at the DOJ being dishonest. The counterargument that people wishing to prevent the FBI from accessing their phone’s contents could just switch to a newer iPhone still applies. And that’s the part the DOJ is calling “unvarnished speculation.”

=> ↺ NSA hacking chief’s mission impossible: Advising White House on cybersecurity

• NSA hacking crew bossman Rob Joyce is set to join US President Donald Trump’s National Security Council as a cybersecurity adviser.

• Joyce headed up the NSA’s Tailored Access Operations division, the spy agency’s elite computer exploitation squad.

=> ↺ Proposed NSA Headquarters Expansion Under Review

• The National Security Agency is proposing to expand and modernize its headquarters site at Fort Meade, Maryland.

• “For NSA/CSS to continue leading the Intelligence Community into the next 50 years with state-of-the-art technologies and productivity, its mission elements require new, centralized facilities and infrastructure,” according to a newly released Final Environmental Impact Statement for the site.

=> ↺ What is Privacy? Why is it even important for us?

• Privacy is not something that me or you going to read in some social media or any type of website’s Privacy Policies and then, Yah, I understood all, they are not taking any single coin from my pocket! Done! It’s more sensible and much deeper thinkable point than we can even imagine. One should understand what is privacy and even if we completely read out the Policies and Terms, doesn’t mean we are not likely to be at any risk.We should understand what we are sharing and how they can be used.

=> ↺ D.C. Circuit Court Issues Dangerous Decision for Cybersecurity: Ethiopia is Free to Spy on Americans in Their Own Homes

• The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit today held that foreign governments are free to spy on, injure, or even kill Americans in their own homes–so long as they do so by remote control. The decision comes in a case called Kidane v. Ethiopia, which we filed in February 2014.

• Our client, who goes by the pseudonym Mr. Kidane, is a U.S. citizen who was born in Ethiopia and has lived here for over 30 years. In 2012 through 2013, his family home computer was attacked by malware that captured and then sent his every keystroke and Skype call to a server controlled by the Ethiopian government, likely in response to his political activity in favor of democratic reforms in Ethiopia. In a stunningly dangerous decision today, the D.C. Circuit ruled that Mr. Kidane had no legal remedy against Ethiopia for this attack, despite the fact that he was wiretapped at home in Maryland. The court held that, because the Ethiopian government hatched its plan in Ethiopia and its agents launched the attack that occurred in Maryland from outside the U.S., a law called the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) prevented U.S. courts from even hearing the case.

• The decision is extremely dangerous for cybersecurity. Under it, you have no recourse under law if a foreign government that hacks into your car and drives it off the road, targets you for a drone strike, or even sends a virus to your pacemaker, as long as the government planned the attack on foreign soil. It flies in the face of the idea that Americans should always be safe in their homes, and that safety should continue even if they speak out against foreign government activity abroad.

=> ↺ Maker of connected vibrator agrees to destroy sensitive user data

• A sex toy company has settled a class-action lawsuit filed by women who alleged that its connected vibrators collected “highly sensitive” personal information without their consent. [...] and did not admit to any wrongdoing.

=> ↺ Sex toy maker forced to pay out millions over intimate data invasion

• A class action was born, and that class action has just delivered some financial compensation.

• The lawsuit was filed in the North District of Illinois Eastern Division District Court, and the settlement is online. The courts decided that Standard Innovation should pay out $4 million Canadian dollars and should now only collect non-identifiable information.

=> ↺ These are the 17 House Representatives that introduced a bill to let telecoms sell your personal internet history

• Most Americans don’t know that telecoms and internet service providers store the internet history of their users; even more don’t know that recently introduced legislation aims to do away with privacy protections on this high value data.

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ Why is Erdoğan picking a fight with the EU over the Turkish referendum?

=> ↺ A man’s personal experience with corporate heartlessness

=> ↺ Are MPs now delegates rather than representatives?

• This valve is a feature of the UK’s “parliamentary democracy”.

• And, in turn, “parliamentary democracy” is a principle of the (uncodified) British constitution.

• Against this principle is now this relentless and alien doctrine of the referendum mandate.

• The 2016 referendum on EU membership was not legally binding: MPs could have legislated for this but chose not to do so. MPs instead chose for the Brexit referendum to have advisory power.

• But it is now being treated by many MPs as having total power: things are being done in the name of the “mandate”.

=> ↺ Brexit Diary – one hurdle surmounted, but another gets more awkward

• But as that obstacle to Brexit falls away, another very much came into view yesterday – not an obstacle as such to Brexit but to a ‘hard Brexit’. This, of course, was because of the the speech of the Scottish First Minister.

• This can be read here. The First Minister announced that there will be an independence referendum when the Brexit proposals become clear.

• The (intended) effect of this speech is to place UK government policy on a wire. If the outcome of Brexit is too ‘hard’ then there will be an independence referendum for Scotland which may support independence.

=> ↺ On Brexit, the SNP and Sinn Féin have been waiting and preparing the whole time

• But yesterday, the Scottish First Minister made her move.

• Now we wait for Sinn Féin’s move.

• The SNP and Sinn Féin have been watching and waiting and preparing the whole time.

• The SNP and Sinn Féin have thought hard about how to exploit this political opportunity. Only a fool would underestimate either entity.

• So soon the proper politics of Brexit will begin, with the UK government facing skilled and determined politicians taking full advantage of the power and leverage presented by the government’s policy of a ‘clean’ (ie, hard) Brexit.

• And this is all in addition to the politics of UK’s negotiations with EU27.

• The political Phoney War is coming to an end.

=> ↺ Research Shows ATF’s Bogus Stash House Stings Target Poor Minorities, Do Almost Nothing To Slow Flow Of Drugs And Guns

• The ATF’s sting operations have already drawn plenty of criticism. Not from law enforcement agencies who partner up with the ATF for easy busts or the DOJ which oversees them, but from almost everyone else, including federal judges. These stings result in government-made criminals who are led by undercover agents towards robbing fake stash houses of nonexistent drugs, cash, and weapons. The fun thing about the nonexistent drugs is it can be whatever amount ATF agents say it is. And that amount of drugs — that exists nowhere but in the imagination of federal agents — is used to determine lengths of sentences.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ New York City Sues Verizon For Fiber Optic Bait And Switch

• For years now, we’ve highlighted Verizon’s tendency to grab all manner of tax breaks and subsidies from a town or city — in exchange for fiber optic upgrades that are often never delivered. All up and down the eastern seaboard, Verizon was given the keys to the kingdom in franchise and other agreements filled with loopholes that let the telco, time and time again, promise one thing, then deliver another. And because the company enjoys immense lobbying power over regional regulators and state legislatures, Verizon has never really been held accountable for this behavior.

• New York City has been a particular point of contention. In 2008, former mayor Mike Bloomberg and Verizon signed (behind closed doors) a new franchise agreement promising “100% coverage” of FiOS across the city by 2014. As some local reporters had warned at the time (and were promptly ignored), the city’s deal with Verizon contained all manner of loopholes allowing Verizon to wiggle over, under and around its obligations. And wiggle Verizon did; a 2015 city report found huge gaps in deployment coverage — particularly in many of the less affluent, outer city boroughs.

=> ↺ USAToday Latest News Outlet To Completely Miss The Point Of Cord Cutting

• So we’ve noted a few times now how every month or so there’s a media report proclaiming that you can’t save any money via cord cutting. The logic in these reports almost always goes something like this: “Once I got done signing up for every damn streaming video service under the sun, I found that I wasn’t really saving much money over traditional cable.”

• Authors leaning on this lazy take almost always tend to forget a few things. One, the same people dictating cable TV rates dictate streaming video rates. Two, adding a dozen streaming services to exactly match your bloated, 300 channel cable subscription misses the entire point of cord cutting. The benefit of streaming is you can pick and choose the content you prefer. And yes, if you prefer a massive bundle of religious programming, horrible reality television, and infomercials, then yes — you may want to stick to paying an arm and a leg for cable.

Intellectual Monopolies

Copyrights

=> ↺ Canadian Federal Court awards Nintendo C$12.8m in TPM first

• The Canadian Federal Court has shown it isn’t playing when it comes to copyright infringement in game industry, in the first ruling to consider technological protection measures introduced in 2012

=> ↺ Prenda May Be Dead, But Copyright Trolling Still Going Strong

• Copyright — with the help of insane $150,000 statutory damages — is still being used as a shakedown weapon, scaring people into paying up, not because of actual infringement, but because copyright trolls have learned how to use the law and the court system as a business model very similar to the one used by organized crime in certain neighbors: pay up or someone’s going to get hurt. The unfortunate “new” part of this is that the “weapon” here isn’t a baseball bat, but federal copyright law and the judicial system.

=> ↺ UK Court Grants First Live Blocking Order To Stop New Infringing Streams As Soon As They Start

• As we noted last week, one of the main copyright battlegrounds in the UK concerns the use of Kodi boxes — low-cost devices running the open source Kodi multimedia player, usually augmented with plug-ins that provide access to unauthorized content. One of the popular uses of such Kodi boxes is to watch live streams of sporting events. TorrentFreak reports on an important new court order obtained by the UK’s Football Association Premier League (FAPL) to prevent people from viewing live streams of soccer games free of charge. The problem for the FAPL is that the addresses of the servers streaming matches are often only known once the games begin. To meet that challenge, the court has granted a new kind of injunction: one that allows live blocking.

=> ↺ New UK ‘Kodi’ Piracy Blocking Injunction is a Pretty Scary Beast

• The new piracy blocking injunction obtained by the UK’s Premier League is groundbreaking on several levels, court papers have revealed. Not only did the football outfit work closely with Sky, BT and Virgin (who all have a vested interest) but the ISPs also monitored traffic from ‘pirate’ servers requested by their customers. Live blocking of streams will be possible too, with no immediate court oversight.

=> ↺ Film Distributor Creates Torrent Site Clone That Gives Away Movie Tickets To Combat Piracy

• Much of the way the movie industry looks to combat film piracy will seem familiar to readers of this site. It typically involves shakedown threat letters, games of DMCA whac-a-mole, and a paint-by-numbers approach that mostly amounts to film studios shaking their lawyers’ fists at the sky. All that produces the status quo, where piracy is still a thing, films still make gobs of money, and regular observers of it all are left scratching our heads wondering how so much noise could be made over it all.

• But I will give credit where credit is due as Costa Rican film distributor Romaly deserves some style and creativity points for its new anti-piracy tactic.

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