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● 10.24.17

● Links 24/10/2017: GTK+ 3.92, ArchLabs 2017.10

Posted in News Roundup at 11:25 am by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

Desktop

=> ↺ Top 5 Linux pain points in 2017

• Although this issue continues to improve as more supported hardware is deployed, many users indicate that they still have issues with UEFI and/or secure boot. Using a distribution that fully supports UEFI/secure boot out of the box is the best solution here.

Server

=> ↺ The Trouble With Promises: Patrick Debois Explains Serverless And ‘Service-Full’ Culture

=> ↺ How to explain Kubernetes in plain English

• Talk containers with an IT pro for more than a minute and the conversation will inevitably turn to container management and orchestration.

• It might be easy to deploy a container, but operationalizing containers at scale — especially in concert with microservices — is not for weekend enthusiasts. It requires planning, and most experts say an orchestration tool is a must.

=> ↺ Container OS options abound: Make the right choice

• When matching a container OS to a host OS, consider interoperability, but also be realistic in the overall enterprise application set. Some organizations maintain a cadre of Microsoft Windows Server applications for aspects such as productivity support while they build out a Linux presence. These IT teams should focus on Linux OS options to match that shifting development focus. Select an easy-to-work-with container OS that will ease the transition from Windows Server.

=> ↺ CoreOS review: Linux for containers and Kubernetes

• CoreOS Container Linux is an open-source container operating system designed to support Kubernetes. The CoreOS flavor of container infrastructure management uses the Rocket or Docker container engine, Etcd for service discovery and configuration, Flannel for networking, and Kubernetes for container management. Unique among container operating systems, CoreOS offers a continuous stream of automated updates that, in theory, do not affect running applications. That’s because they run in containers.

Kernel Space

=> ↺ Civil Infrastructure Platform releases Linux system for management of critical systems

• The Civil Infrastructure Platform project has released CIP Core, a reference minimal file system that offers a customizable environment that developers can use to test the CIP kernel and core packages.

• CIP aims to provide a base layer of industrial grade open source software components, tools and methods to enable long-term management of critical systems.

=> ↺ Open-sourcing data will make big data bigger than ever

• Free software has been with computing since day one, but proprietary software ruled businesses. It took open source and its licenses to transform how we coded our programs. Today, even Microsoft has embraced open source. Now, The Linux Foundation has created a new open license framework, Community Data License Agreement (CDLA), which may do for data what open source did for programming.

• In Prague, at Open Source Summit Europe, The Linux Foundation announced a new family of open-data licenses. The CDLA licenses are an effort to define a licensing framework to support collaborative communities built around curating and sharing “open” data.

=> ↺ Linux Foundation Launches Open Data Licensing Agreements

=> ↺ Linux Foundation wants to do to data what it’s done for software

• Today at the Open Source Summit in Prague, executive director Jim Zemlin announced the Community Data License Agreement, which is designed for non-proprietary data.

• The org says data producers can now share the goods “with greater clarity about what recipients may do with it”.

• One branch “puts terms in place to ensure that downstream recipients can use and modify that data, and are also required to share their changes”, while the other does not oblige users to share those changes.

=> ↺ Linux Foundation Certified System Administrator: Gabriel Rojo Argote

• I started to get interested while studying at the Instituto Tecnológico de León in Guanajuato México. One of my professors taught a subject called “Introduction to Computing” and began to talk about the variety of operating systems that existed in the market. The professor put a lot of emphasis on the Unix and GNU/Linux operating systems, talking about the versatility and robustness they had. This sparked my interest in knowing GNU/Linux and, because it was distributed in disks in some city magazines, it was easy for me to be able to acquire a distribution—an easy route to use the operating system and get to know different free applications. I got involved little by little in the management of the same GNU/Linux.

=> ↺ Linux 4.13.9

• I’m announcing the release of the 4.13.9 kernel.

• All users of the 4.13 kernel series must upgrade.

• The updated 4.13.y git tree can be found at: git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable.git linux-4.13.y and can be browsed at the normal kernel.org git web browser:

• http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-st…

=> ↺ Linux 4.9.58

=> ↺ Linux 4.4.94

=> ↺ Linux 3.18.77

=> ↺ Linux 4.14-rc6

• So rc6 is delayed, not because of any development problems, but simply because the internet was horribly bad my usual Sunday afternoon time, and I decided not to even try to fight it.

• And by delaying things, I got a couple more ull requests in from Greg. Yay, I guess?

• rc6 is a bit larger than I was hoping for, and I’m not sure whether that is a sign that we will need an rc8 after all this release (which wouldn’t be horribly surprising), or whether it’s simply due to timing. I’m going to leave that open for now, so just know that rc8 may happen.

=> ↺ Linux 4.14-rc6 Released: Linux 4.14 Kernel Final In 2~3 Weeks

=> ↺ The Linux Foundation Announces 27 Recipients of LiFT Scholarships

• OPEN SOURCE SUMMIT EUROPE — The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, has announced the recipients of its 2017 Linux Foundation Training (LiFT) Scholarships. LiFT provides advanced open source training to existing and aspiring IT professionals from around the world.

• This is the seventh year The Linux Foundation has awarded training scholarships. Seventy-five scholarships worth more than $168,000 have been awarded to date to current and aspiring IT professionals who may not otherwise be able to afford specialized training. Scholarship recipients receive a Linux Foundation training course and certification exam at no cost.

=> ↺ Two new open-source security projects are joining the Cloud Native Computing Foundation

• The organization at the heart of modern open-source cloud-computing standards has taken another two projects under its umbrella, tackling container security for the first time.

=> ↺ The Cloud Native Computing Foundation adds two security projects to its open source stable

• The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) is probably best known for being the home of the Kubernetes container orchestration project, but there plenty of other projects that now fall under the organization’s umbrella. All of them focus on bringing the kind of modern cloud-native tooling that companies like Google, Microsoft, Facebook and others take for granted to a wider range of users.

• Today, the CNCF is expanding its stable with the addition of the Docker-incubated Notary and The Update Framework (TUF), which was originally developed by professor Justin Cappos and his team at NYU’s Tandon School of engineering. These are actually related projects. Notary, which can provide a layer of trust to any content, is actually an implementation of the TUF.

=> ↺ Linux Foundation Debuts Community Data License Agreement

• The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit advancing professional open source management for mass collaboration, today announced the Community Data License Agreement (CDLA) family of open data agreements. In an era of expansive and often underused data, the CDLA licenses are an effort to define a licensing framework to support collaborative communities built around curating and sharing “open” data.

=> ↺ Linux Foundation creates a framework for sharing open data

• The Linux Foundation wants to open up the use of data in much the same way it has helped make open-source software a technology force to be reckoned with.

Graphics Stack

=> ↺ Mesa 17.3 By The Numbers

• With Mesa 17.3 having been branched yesterday and the first release candidate issued for this quarterly feature update, here’s a look at some of the development numbers for this Q4’17 Mesa update.

=> ↺ Mesa 17.3 Has Been Branched

• Mesa 17.3 has been branched ahead of its expected stable debut in mid-to-late November.

• Emil Velikov of Collabora this morning created the 17.3 branch of Mesa from which weekly release candidates will come before declaring the Mesa 17.3.0 stable release a few weeks down the road.

Benchmarks

=> ↺ Radeon RX Vega 64: AMDGPU-PRO vs. DRM-Next + Mesa 17.3-dev

• For those wondering how the RadeonSI and RADV open-source driver performance is fairing for the Radeon RX Vega 64 compared to the AMDGPU-PRO hybrid driver, here are some fresh benchmarks.

• Here’s the latest open-source vs. closed-source (hybrid) driver benchmarks. The AMDGPU-PRO 17.30 was used as the latest hybrid driver release; the 17.40 “mining” beta driver was attempted as well, but found to be too unstable for gaming. On the open-source driver side meanwhile was the AMDGPU DC next code that’s set to be merged for Linux 4.15. On the user-space side was Mesa 17.3-dev built against LLVM 6.0 SVN, provided by the Padoka PPA.

Applications

=> ↺ GIMP, More Awesome Than I Remember

• For what seems like decades, GIMP (Graphic Image Manipulation Program) has been the de facto standard image editor for Linux. It works well, has many features, and it even supports scripting. I always have found it a bit clumsy, however, and I preferred using something else for day-to-day work. I recently had the pleasure of sitting at a computer without an image editor though, so I figured I’d give GIMP another try on a non-Linux operating system. See, the last time I tried to use GIMP on OS X, it required non-standard libraries and home-brew adding. Now, if you head over to the GIMP site, you can download a fully native version of GIMP for Windows, OS X and Linux.

• I’ll be honest, just being able to install GIMP with a simple drag and drop on OS X was an improvement worth noting. When I actually started using it, however, I found that it’s truly as powerful as Photoshop for the things I do. Granted, Photoshop likely has features advanced users might need that GIMP doesn’t have, but everything I do with images was fully supported without exception. In the screenshot (from an OS X machine), you can see an example of me “painting” my Volkswagen using nothing more than the auto-selection tool and a virtual airbrush.

=> ↺ Best Alternatives To Photoshop On Linux

• ​You need an image editing software and you do not yet feel ready to buy a Photoshop license. Besides the online retouching sites, there are also free alternatives adapted for each use of the famous Adobe software that will allow you to tinker with the pixel at a lower cost.

=> ↺ Ninite – Install Or Update Multiple Apps Together On Windows

• One big problem with Windows is searching and installing software. Here we do not have a Play Store like Android or an App Store like IOS. We have to manually go to the software’s website, download it and install it.

=> ↺ A REUSE compliant Curl

• The REUSE initiative is aiming to make free and open source software licenses computer readable. We do this by the introduction of our three REUSE best practices, all of which seek to make it possible for a computer program to read which licenses apply to a specific software package.

=> ↺ Cozy is a Promising New Audiobook Player for Linux Desktops

• A promising new audiobook player for Linux desktop has joined the shelves of open-source software. It’s called Cozy, uses GTK3, and is billed as providing a ‘modern’ front-end from which to browse your collection of talking books.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ How to Monitor and Detect Modified Files using Tripwire IDS on Ubuntu 16.04

=> ↺ Compiling and Installing ModSecurity for Open Source NGINX

=> ↺ How to Enable or Disable SELinux Boolean Values

=> ↺ Upgrading to Kubernetes 1.8 with Kubeadm

• Kubeadm is the tool that ships with Kubernetes to manage your cluster’s lifecycle; it’s designed to be used any time you need to do something significant to your cluster. Kubeadm 1.8 brings new features to the table, and we recommend checking out the the repository for all the latest development.

=> ↺ Hosting a WordPress site on AWS at low costs

=> ↺ How to Lock User Accounts After Failed Login Attempts

Wine or Emulation

=> ↺ Wine 2.0 Gets Third Stability Update with Improvements for Adobe Premiere, More

• The Wine (Wine Is Not an Emulator) compatibility layer for running Windows apps and games on GNU/Linux and UNIX-like operating system received a new stability update for the latest Wine 2.0 branch.

Games

=> ↺ The Long Road to Linux Gaming

• It was adopted by many mainframe manufacturers who wanted to use open-source software instead of Windows but its big breakthrough came when it was adopted by Android and used on the majority of the world’s mobile devices. In turn this meant that many more games were developed which could run on Linux so now players have a very wide choice to enjoy.

=> ↺ The very strange ‘Don’t Be Patchman’ has been released in full

=> ↺ Top-down shooter ‘CS2D’ inspired by Counter-Strike releases on Steam next month

=> ↺ It’s possible that strategy game ‘AI War II’ may launch in March of next year

=> ↺ Lonely Mountains: Downhill, an arcade-style mountain biking game is on Kickstarter with Linux support

• Like the sound of an arcade-style mountain biking game? Lonely Mountains: Downhill is currently on Kickstarter and plans Linux support.

=> ↺ Cyberpunk horror game ‘Observer’ releases for Linux today, no AMD support at release

=> ↺ Tiny Barbarian DX, a 2D platformer with co-op support is now available on Linux

• In need of a new co-op game? The developer of Tiny Barbarian DX [Steam, Official Site] has just a few days ago release the Linux version of their 2D platformer.

• The game was originally funded on Kickstarter, back in December of 2012, where they secured $15,457 funding. A Linux version wasn’t in their original plan, but they were open to supporting it in future.

=> ↺ HITMAN – Game of the Year Edition announced with a new campaign

• HITMAN – Game of the Year Edition has been officially announced by Io-Interactive and it will have a new campaign to play through.

=> ↺ Warzone 2100 Being Ported To Vulkan

• Warzone 2100, the real-time strategy/tactics game released for Windows back in 1999 and then brought to Linux after the commercial game was open-sourced several years later, is now seeing a Vulkan renderer in the works.

=> ↺ The developers of Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation are working on the Linux version

• Good news for fans of strategy games, as Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation is currently being ported to Linux.

=> ↺ Space shooter ‘ASTROKILL’ updated with official Linux support

• Looks like the Beta of ASTROKILL [Steam] went well, as the developer just pushed out a big update and with it comes official Linux support.

=> ↺ SEUM: Speedrunners from Hell adds 33 new levels in ‘The Drunk Side of the Moon’ DLC

=> ↺ Perform a live concert in Comedy Night, now on Linux

• Comedy Night [Steam], an online game about performing comedy in front of a live audience has recently released the Linux version.

• It would be interesting to be in the audience, but I can’t imagine joining a server and attempting to do the comedy myself, I think nerves would get the better of me even if I’m not technically there in person. I’m also not that funny! I can do grumpy, I’m rather good at that.

=> ↺ Indie FPS ‘Vengeance’ has a huge update, starting to actually get fun now

=> ↺ Overgrowth has finally left Early Access, after many years of development

Desktop Environments/WMs

=> ↺ 5 Most Beautiful Linux Desktop Environments

• When it comes to choosing a Linux distro, one thing that influences the choices of many is the desktop environment that comes with the distros. As such, many distros provide variants with different desktop environments to cater for the specific needs of users. Some desktop environments are preferred because of their stability, or their familiarity and many others are popular because of their aesthetics. So today I present some 5 very beautiful desktop environments that you can choose from. So let’s take a look.

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

=> ↺ Community goal: Modern and Global Text Input For Every User

• A few months ago, I had the opportunity to give a talk on Input Methods in Plasma 5 at Akademy 2017 in lovely Almería in Spain. If you were interest in my talk but were unable to attend, there’s now video (complementary slides) available courtesy of the Akademy conference team. Yay!

=> ↺ Past days in Kdenlive

• Since last update, several missing features & stability update made it to the development branch, you can follow the progress on our 17.12 blocking issues.

=> ↺ KDE Promo Activity Report – September 5, 2017

=> ↺ Calamares releases

• It’s been a quiet month for me for blogging, but one filled with unexpected and weird and not-really-bloggable things. There was a trip to Berlin, where I had the pleasure of meeing up with a bunch of KDE people whom I hadn’t seen for over a month. Long time. There was also an accident with maple syrup, I’m sure.

GNOME Desktop/GTK

=> ↺ GTK4′s Vulkan Renderer Is Close To Complete

• Red Hat’s Matthias Clasen has written a blog post concerning the changes found in the big GTK+ 3.92 development release that is pushing towards the GTK4 tool-kit release.

=> ↺ GTK+ 3.92

• Yesterday, we released GTK+ 3.92.1, 重庆市. Since it has been a while since the last 3.91 release, here is a brief look at the major changes.

• This release is another milestone on our way towards GTK+ 4. And while a lot still needs to be done, this release allows a first glimpse at some of the things we hope to achieve in GTK+ 4.

Distributions

New Releases

=> ↺ TheSSS 23.0 available for download.

• This is a major release based on the 4MLinux Server 23.0, meaning that the components of the LAMP server are now: Linux 4.9.52, Apache 2.4.28, MariaDB 10.2.9, and PHP (5.6.31 and 7.0.24). Webmin has been updated to the version 1.850. Much improved support for SCSI, RAID and LVM devices is now available out of the box. And finally, the biggest change is related to the installation script, which now makes it possible to install TheSSS on ext2, ext3, ext4, reiserfs, jfs, xfs, btrfs, and nilfs2 partitions.

=> ↺ The Smallest Server Suite Updated with Better Support for SCSI and RAID Devices

• 4MLinux developer Zbigniew Konojacki‏ is informing us today on the release and immediate availability for download of version 23.0 of his TheSSS (The Smallest Server Suite) lightweight and open-source Linux OS.

• Based on the upcoming 4MLinux 23.0 operating system, TheSSS 23.0 release is here to upgrade its LAMP (Linux, Apache, MariaDB and PHP) components to new versions, and it’s now powered by Linux kernel 4.9.52 LTS, Apache 2.4.28, MariaDB 10.2.9, as well as both the newer PHP 7.0.24 and the older PHP 5.6.31 for compatibility.

• The latest Webmin 1.850 web-based system configuration tool is included as well in this major release of TheSSS, which comes with an updated installation script that lets users install the Linux-based server OS on various popular file systems, including Btrfs, EXT2, EXT3, EXT4, XFS, ReiserFS, JFS, and NILFS2.

PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandriva Family

=> ↺ Some dreams about mageia 7

• As we released mageia 6 and we released Pulse 4.0 at work i had some time to think about what i would like to see, to do for mageia 7.

Arch Family

=> ↺ ArchLabs 2017.10 Release

• So in my previous release blog post I made mention that 2017.09 was probably our last major release for the year…….I told porkies…..

• 2017.10 was going to be just an ISO refresh as Arch has just released one themselves but as it happens, when you are chipping away at settings and configs, they take on a life of their own. We decided that we had added too many cool things and tweaked enough that to call 2017.10 a mere “refresh” wasn’t really a fair description or representation.

• But, before I carry on about the new release I would like to welcome to the ArchLabs team as a collaborator, Josiah Ward. He brings with him a ton of Linux knowledge. Josiah is a part of the Revenge distro and was kind enough to help us out with a few things.

Red Hat Family

=> ↺ Agile at Red Hat

=> ↺ Red Hat Positioned in the Visionaries Quadrant of Gartner’s 2017 Magic Quadrant for Distributed File Systems and Object Storage Two Years in a Row

=> ↺ Red Hat honours IAG at its Innovation Awards for APAC

• Open source specialist Red Hat has announced that IAG has won the top honour at the 2017 Red Hat Innovation Awards for Australia and New Zealand.

• Red Hat says IAG has been chosen due to its outstanding and innovative usage of Red Hat solutions, and for the positive impact they have created in accelerating innovation through open source.

Finance

=> ↺ Swedbank Buys Thor Industries Inc, Red Hat Inc, PayPal Holdings Inc, Sells F5 Networks Inc, Ecolab Inc, IHS Markit

=> ↺ Short-term Option Swing Trading Ahead of Earnings in Red Hat Inc

=> ↺ A Look Into Insider Activity With Red Hat, Inc. (RHT)

=> ↺ Should You Buy MobileIron, Inc. (MOBL) or Red Hat, Inc. (RHT)?

=> ↺ Can Red Hat Inc (RHT)’s Tomorrow be Different? The Stock Just Broke Its High

Fedora

=> ↺ Updated Settings Application in Fedora 27 Workstation

• Fedora 27 Workstation is slated for release later in the year, and it ships with version 3.26 of GNOME. One of the awesome changes from upstream GNOME that is shipping in Fedora 27 is the re-designed Settings application. The new Settings has moved from a grid layout to a side panel, and several of the pages — like the display configuration — are also redesigned.

=> ↺ What I have found interesting in Fedora during the week 42 of 2017

Debian Family

Derivatives

Canonical/Ubuntu

=> ↺ What Will the Ubuntu 18.04 Name ‘B’?

• The Ubuntu 18.04 name will begin with the letter ‘B’ – but what will it be? We look at what we know about Ubuntu 18.04 LTS and try to guess.

=> ↺ Upgrading To Ubuntu 17.10? — Keep These 3 Important Things In Mind

• Last week, Canonical pushed the final, stable release of Ubuntu 17.10 Linux distribution. Even though it isn’t an LTS release, 17.10 doesn’t hesitate from bringing a whole set of big changes to the table.

=> ↺ Recommended Applications for Ubuntu 17.10

• Here I list useful free software applications for Ubuntu 17.10 users. This including lightweight web browsers, video player, and also alternatives to Adobe Photoshop, CorelDRAW, or such nonfree software applications. You also can read how to install them here. I hope this list will help you in your first days using Artful Aardvark!

=> ↺ The Official Ubuntu 17.10 ‘Artful Aardvark’ T-Shirt Is Here

• An official Ubuntu 17.10 t-shirt is now available to buy from Canonical’s online store.

• Canonical has produced mascot t-shirts for each release since Ubuntu 8.04 LTS ‘Hardy Heron’.

• The latest design is a dark blueish¹ color and boasts a bright orange aardvark mascot in the centre. The reverse of the shirt reads “Artful Aardvark 17.10” in orange text.

Flavours and Variants

=> ↺ Ubuntu Kylin 17.10 Releases for Chinese Linux Users with Own Video Player, More

• The Ubuntu Kylin team was pleased to announce the release of Ubuntu Kylin 17.10 for Chinese Linux users as part of the Ubuntu 17.10 (Artful Aardvark) operating system.

• Coming with the same internals of Ubuntu 17.10, the Ubuntu Kylin 17.10 release adds improvements to the desktop environment and featured applications. It’s powered by the latest Linux 4.13 kernel, which features asynchronous I/O improvements, SMB 3.0 as default protocol for CIFS mounts, and several EXT4 enhancements.

• Its MATE-based UKUI desktop environment received a brand-new icon theme, Start Menu optimizations, adjustments to the lockscreen setting page and control panel layout, as well as various improvements to the file manager, including new “Unzip” and “Open by Terminal” functions in the right-click context menu.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ RaspAnd Nougat 7.1.2 for Raspberry Pi 3 – Build 171019/170805 – with GAPPS, Aptoide TV and Kodi 18.0-ALPHA1 to be installed in Linux

• RaspAnd Nougat 7.1.2 Build 170805 can be installed in Windows using Win32 Disk Imager. This method has one disadvantage. Only about 5GB can be used as data storage no matter which card you use. I have therefore today uploaded a new version, which can be (must be) installed using a Linux system. The new system from 171019 is basically the same system as the RaspAnd system from 170805. I have only added AIDA 1.47 and replaced Google Chrome with Firefox 56.0. Kodi has been upgraded from version 17.3 to version 18.0-ALPHA1. Now say, for example, that you use Micro SD card (preferable a class 10 card) of 64GB about 56GB can be used as data storage. This is of course a big advantage. When you are done with partitioning of the card it shall look like the screenshot below shows. The needed partitions for RaspAnd are created with GParted in Linux.

=> ↺ RaspAnd Brings Android 7.1.2 Nougat to Your Raspberry Pi 3 with GAPPS, Kodi 18.0

• GNU/Linux developer Arne Exton announced the release of a new build of his commercial RasnAnd project that lets users run Google’s Android mobile operating system on their Raspberry Pi 3 single-board computers.

=> ↺ Rugged PC/104-Plus SBC runs Linux on a Vortex86DX3 SoC

• WinSystems has launched a rugged “PPM-C412” PC/104-Plus SBC with a dual-core Vortex86DX3, dual LAN ports, and -40 to 85°C and dual display support.

• The PPM-C412 is being promoted by Arlington, Texas based WinSystems as an upgrade path for users of the circa-2009 PPM-LX800, a PC/104-Plus SBC with a 500MHz AMD Geode LX800 processor much like its circa-2008 cousin, the LPM-LX800. Like the recent WinSystems PCM-C418 PC/104 SBC, the PPM-C412 runs Linux, DOS, or other x86-based RTOSes on DMP’s x86-based, dual-core Vortex86DX3 SoC.

=> ↺ Highly modular industrial computer offers Kaby Lake or Skylake CPUs

• Cincoze’s rugged, “DX-1000” system offers 6th or 7th Gen Core and Xeon 3 chips plus triple displays, dual hot-swap SATA, 4x mini-PCIe, and other expansion.

=> ↺ Purism Librem 5 Crowdfunding Ends With Over $2 million Raised

• That’s it: time is up on the Purism Librem 5 crowdfunding campaign.

• The bold project to build a privacy-orientated smartphone powered by free software ends with over $2.1 million raised against its $1.5 million goal (which it reached in early October).

=> ↺ Comment: Disrupting the insurance business with open source IoT hardware

• The adoption of IoT products is a bit sluggish. While there are many causes, the number one reason stems from the high cost of hardware, with the retail price of IoT devices typically much more than disconnected alternatives. But pricey hardware only partly explains the underlying reasons for the mammoth difference — a broken revenue model is the real elephant in the room.

=> ↺ Managing Internet connections on Linux devices with ConnMan

• Connection Manager (ConnMan) is a connection management daemon (connmand) for managing Internet connections within devices running the Linux operating system. It offers low memory consumption with a fast, coherent, synchronized reaction to changing network conditions.

=> ↺ Orange, DT unite to show how open source can aid IoT

• Orange and Deutsche Telekom are working together on a project that aims to demonstrate how smart home devices can be integrated through open source software and open standards.

Samsung/Tizen

=> ↺ [Older] Samsung Brings Full Linux Distribution Support to DeX with “Linux for Galaxy”

=> ↺ Linux Distros Coming to Samsung Smartphones Via Dex

=> ↺ Samsung’s DeX Getting Linux: Dreams of Chrome OS on a Phone

=> ↺ Samsung cements itself as the largest TV manufacturer for a record 12th year

=> ↺ Unofficial and safe Blue Whale Game released for Tizen Smartphones

=> ↺ Selfie Flash Pro app now available on the Tizen Store, Get the best selfie!

=> ↺ New motorbike racing games in the Tizen Store

Android

=> ↺ The Essential Phone gets a $200 price drop, now $499

=> ↺ Teclast T10 Review: A 10-Inch Android Tablet For Under $250

• The Android software version here is 7.0, which is starting to be a bit dated. Given that Teclast is a Chinese OEM, I wouldn’t expect quick updates to Oreo anytime soon. But at least the software here is mostly stock, with the exception of two bloatware Chinese apps that cannot be uninstalled.

• Android as a software platform has matured a lot in recent years, so using it on what is essentially a blown-up mobile screen is no longer as awkward as a couple years ago. Sure, some apps like Instagram still look ridiculous running on a tablet screen — not to mention Instagram Stories refuses to run on the T10 — but other apps like Facebook, Gmail and YouTube have been optimized for larger displays and they look wonderful on the T10. In Gmail, for example, you get two separate columns for list of emails and email summary respectively.

• Read more

=> ↺ Android Roms, Recoveries and bootloaders – All you need to know

• With the most of the companies allowing root access on their devices, many people have started trying custom ROMs, recoveries, mods and all these things. But often as a beginner or an enthusiast one simply cannot understand which part of the Android puzzle fits where.

=> ↺ Huawei Watch 2 Pro launched in China, comes with eSIM and Android Wear 2.0

=> ↺ Google investigating Pixel 2 XL screen burn-in reports

=> ↺ Android Studio 3.0 Release Candidate 2 Released

=> ↺ Android is getting a feature that encrypts website name requests

=> ↺ Sony Xperia XZ Premium now receiving Android 8.0 Oreo update

=> ↺ Xiaomi Mi A1 Android One ROM gets ported to Redmi Note 4 and Note 4X

=> ↺ Animal Crossing mobile game details will finally be revealed on October 24

=> ↺ Exclusive: Leaked OnePlus 5T image shows off full-screen display, smaller bezels

=> ↺ 10 best Halloween apps for Android!

=> ↺ 5 best Marvel games for Android

=> ↺ Essential Phone now priced at $499, previous buyers get a $200 ‘friends and family’ code

=> ↺ What To Do When The Power Button Of Your Android Phone Is Broken?

=> ↺ ‘Pay With Google’ makes shopping on Android less of a hassle

=> ↺ Is this our first look at the OnePlus 5T?

Free Software/Open Source

=> ↺ PC-MOS/386 is the latest obsolete operating system to open source on Github

• PC-MOS/386 was first announced by The Software Link in 1986 and was released in early 1987. It was capable of working on any x86 computer (though the Intel 80386 was its target market). However, some later chips became incompatible because they didn’t have the necessary memory management unit.

• It had a dedicated following but also contained a couple of design flaws that made it slow and/or expensive to run. Add to that the fact it had a Y2K bug that manifested on 31 July 2012, after which any files created wouldn’t work, and it’s not surprising that it didn’t become the gold standard. The last copyright date listed is 1992, although some users have claimed to be using it far longer.

=> ↺ PC-MOS operating system goes open source (30 years after release)

• These days if you’re using a desktop computer you’re probably running Windows, although there’s also a good chance you’re using OS X or maybe Chrome OS or one of a number of GNU/Linux distributions. But back in the 80s, it’s wasn’t really clear who the dominant players of the future would be.

=> ↺ MS-DOS variant PC-MOS/386 reborn as open source

• Do you still long to run WordPerfect 5.1, Lotus 1-2-3 4, or Doom on DOS? Well, if you do, there’s a new way to revisit the PC world of the 1980s: The newly open-sourced PC-MOS/386 v501.

• PC-MOS, for those who weren’t around in 1987, was a multi-user MS-DOS clone by Norcross, GA’s The Software Link. It ran most standard DOS and 386′s protected mode applications. I reviewed it back in the day — although I can’t find my article from Computer Digest, a Washington DC regional general interest computer newspaper, I recall it worked well.

=> ↺ Open Source Initiative, and Open Source Software Movement Celebrate Twenty Years

• The Open Source Initiative® (OSI), the global non-profit dedicated to raising awareness and adoption of open source software, announced today plans for the “Open Source 20th Anniversary World Tour” to run through 2018.

• Open source software is now ubiquitous, recognized across industries as a fundamental component to infrastructure, as well as a critical factor for driving innovation. Over the past twenty years, the OSI has worked to promote and protect open source software, development, and communities, championing software freedom in society through education, collaboration, and infrastructure, stewarding the Open Source Definition (OSD), and preventing abuse of the ideals and ethos inherent to the open source movement.

=> ↺ ErosCoin – An open source solution for blockchain payment industries

• Possibly the largest single factor currently holding cryptocurrencies back from mass adoption is their difficulty of use for the average person. While Bitcoin and Ethereum both provide the ability to transfer value quickly and securely without borders, they both suffer from a steep learning curve, which limits interest from merchants, consumers and payment providers, and restricts growth of their platforms. EROSCOIN is setting out to create a new blockchain that is very significantly differentiated from other existing cryptocurrencies, giving the industry a payment solution that can help to expand the ecosystem and expand user adoption.

=> ↺ 7 years of open source: Cloud Foundry, DiffBlue & Quest

=> ↺ Rackspace kills discount cloud hosting for open source projects

• Rackspace has announced it will no longer be offering discounts on hosting for open source projects, although it will only apply to new customers rather than those with projects already up and running on the platform.

=> ↺ Google Debuts Software to Open Up Quantum Computers for Chemists

• The software, which is open-source and free to use, could be used by chemists and material scientists to adapt algorithms and equations to run on quantum computers.

=> ↺ How Open Source boosts the Big Data-Driven Business

• Open Source offers fertile ground for digital transformation. Though Open Source revolutionised software, it now has an impact in larger business fields and this phenomenon is way older than the Big Data revolution we are currently living through.

• Open Source refers to software licenses that can be freely redistributed, accessed and utilised to create derivative works. The source code is made available for the public and often results from collaboration between programmers.

=> ↺ Polhemspriset 2017

• I accept this prize, not as a single inventor or brilliant mind of anything, but like the captain of a boat with a large and varying crew without whom I would never have reached this far. I’m excited that the nominee board found me and our merry project and that they were open-minded enough to see and realize the value and position of an open source project that is used literally everywhere. I feel deeply honored.

Events

=> ↺ Two Sigma Launches Halite II: The Open Source Competition for Experimenting With Future Applications of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

=> ↺ systemd’s “All Systems Go” 2017 Conference Videos Now Available

• The annual systemd conference, All Systems Go!, that is also about other user-space Linux technologies, has wrapped up in Berlin.

=> ↺ GSoC Mentor Summit 2017

• Before digging deeper into details, I would like to say thank you KDE for this great opportunity. There’s not better way to start the 2nd year of my Master Degree: visiting California and meeting amazing people. You can realize how much you are lucky to belong to an open source community when these things happen.

=> ↺ Flexera to Present on Open Source for Executives and Developers at All Things Open 2017

Web Browsers

Mozilla

=> ↺ Mozilla and Tactical Technology bring The Glass Room to London

• The Glass Room’s sleek, minimalist storefront located in London’s busy West End is no accident. Shoppers may enter with an expectation to browse and buy the latest technology, yet they leave with a greater understanding that for many companies, we have become the product and our personal data has become a commodity.

Databases

=> ↺ Neo4j Donates Cypher for Apache Spark to openCypher project: Open Source Contribution Makes ‘SQL for Graphs’ Available on Apache Spark

• Neo4j, the market leader in connected data, today announced that it has donated an early version of Cypher for Apache™ Spark® (CAPS) language toolkit to the openCypher project. This contribution will allow big data analysts to incorporate graph querying in their workflows, making it easier to bring graph algorithms to bear, dramatically broadening how they reveal connections in their data. Developers of Spark applications now join the users of Neo4j, SAP HANA, Redis Graph and AgensGraph, among others, in gaining access to Cypher, the leading declarative property graph query language. This also expands the tooling available to any developer, under Apache 2.0 licenses from the openCypher project.

=> ↺ VoltDB Extends Open Source Capabilities for Development of Real-Time Applications

• VoltDB, the enterprise-class translytical database that powers business-critical applications, today announced it is expanding its open source licensing to enable developers to rapidly build, test and deploy real-time applications with the VoltDB data platform. Developers can now access the power of the VoltDB platform with no additional fees, reducing the cost of application development and accelerating the testing and deployment of more advanced database capabilities in production environments.

Healthcare

=> ↺ Open Source Helps Healthcare Orgs Adapt to IT Advancements

• Open source software is gaining popularity in healthcare as organizations use it to quickly adopt new technology that further advances IT solutions. This continued adoption encourages vendors to offer open source software to help meet the IT demand.

• PrismTech recently announced that it’s expanding its Vortex data distribution service (DDS) to include an open source option, Eclipse Cyclone. Users have access to the full source code supported by the Eclipse Foundation.

Pseudo-Open Source (Openwashing)

=> ↺ Rubicon Project Launches Open Source Server-Side Header Bidding Closed Beta

Funding

=> ↺ Linux Academy and Cloud Assessments Secures $6.8 Million Series A Funding

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

=> ↺ Richard Stallman – One Of My Favorites (GNU/Linux)

• Renowned programmer and promoter of free software *, Richard Stallman developed many flagship software, notably those underlying the GNU project and the general public license known by the acronym GPL, which he wrote with the lawyer Eben Moglen and the collaboration of Roland McGrath.

• This program was at the origin of the flowering of the Wiki, initiated by Ward Cunningham in 1995, modifiable websites constructed by the community of the Internet users, such as Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Stallman was also the author of the term copyleft in ironical reference to the notion of copyright that he was fighting.

Public Services/Government

=> ↺ Public Money? Public Code!

Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

=> ↺ How open government is helping with hurricane relief

• Just weeks after Hurricane Harvey hit Texas, two more “unprecedented” hurricanes made their way to the southeastern United States. Although changes in Hurricane Irma’s path spared Florida from the bulk of the damage, both Irma and Maria directly hit Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Hurricane Maria was particularly devastating for the more than 3.5 million American citizens living in these U.S. Caribbean territories. The CEO of Puerto Rico’s sole electric company indicated that the grid had been “basically destroyed.” Without electricity, communications were severely limited.

• In the aftermath of a natural disaster, embracing open government principles—such as open data, collaboration between citizens and government, and transparency—can save lives.

Open Hardware/Modding

=> ↺ The MNT Reform: a modular, open source hardware, blob-free laptop inspired by classic PCs

• Lukas F. Hartmann grew up on PCs like the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Amiga 500, and while he appreciates the power and portability of modern laptops, he missed the character and invitation of experiment in these classic PCs.

Programming/Development

=> ↺ Center stage: Best practices for staging environments

• We’re talking about staging because no one talks about it. It’s mentioned in passing as the annoying sidekick to production. It’s the expected and completely necessary part of the deployment cycle barely touched by schools or internships. It’s considered such an obvious part of architecture that no one mentions it, no one details it, many people do it wrong—and some don’t do it at all.

=> ↺ Testing javascript in a dockerized rails application with rspec-rails

=> ↺ Learning Data Science

• In my last few articles, I’ve written about data science and machine learning. In case my enthusiasm wasn’t obvious from my writing, let me say it plainly: it has been a long time since I last encountered a technology that was so poised to revolutionize the world in which we live.

• Think about it: you can download, install and use open-source data science libraries, for free. You can download rich data sets on nearly every possible topic you can imagine, for free. You can analyze that data, publish it on a blog, and get reactions from governments and companies.

• I remember learning in high school that the difference between freedom of speech and freedom of the press is that not everyone has a printing press. Not only has the internet provided everyone with the equivalent of a printing press, but it has given us the power to perform the sort of analysis that until recently was exclusively available to governments and wealthy corporations.

Leftovers

Hardware

=> ↺ Processors – Everything You Need to Know

Health/Nutrition

=> ↺ Global Fund For AIDS, TB & Malaria Narrows Director Candidates To Four

• The Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria announced today it has narrowed the search to four high-level candidates, coming from backgrounds in banking, development agencies and the United Nations.

Security

=> ↺ Security updates for Monday

=> ↺ Kaspersky Lab to open software to review, says nothing to hide

• Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab said on Monday it will ask independent parties to review the security of its anti-virus software, which the U.S. government has said could jeopardize national security, citing concerns over Kremlin influence and hijacking by Russian spies.

=> ↺ Kaspersky Lab to Open Source Code for Independent Review Amid Pressure in US

=> ↺ ‘Nothing to hide’: Kaspersky Lab opens source code to independent review

=> ↺ ‘We’ve nothing to hide’: Kaspersky Lab offers to open up source code

=> ↺ Kaspersky Opens Source Code For Independent Probing To Combat Spying Allegations

=> ↺ Kaspersky code review doesn’t solve the spying problem

=> ↺ Kaspersky pledges independent code review to cast off spying suspicions

=> ↺ Cybersecurity firm Kaspersky says spying for Kremlin ‘would kill our business’

=> ↺ Accused of Spying, Russian Security Firm Will Show Its Code and Operations to Outsiders

=> ↺ Data Security and Open Source, 2017 Update

• The Equifax breach has revived a controversy about the security of open source software that has been simmering for many years. According to Equifax, the perpetrators of the breach may have exploited a security vulnerability in Apache Struts, an open source framework used to build web applications. Open source software is software that is developed in a collaborative community, and made freely available to anyone who wishes to use it. Since the early 2000s, the use of open source software, particularly in e-commerce, has burgeoned to the point that almost every technology company now relies heavily upon it. Apache Struts is just one example of software included in the ubiquitous “LAMP stack” (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and Perl/Python/PHP).

=> ↺ How To Avoid Future Krack-Like Failures: Create Well-Maintained ‘Fat’ Protocols Using Initial Coin Offerings

• It came as something of a shock to learn recently that several hugely-popular security protocols for Wi-Fi, including WPA (Wireless Protected Access) and WPA2, were vulnerable to a key re-installation attack (pdf). A useful introduction from the EFF puts things in context, while more technical details can be found on the krackattacks.com site, and in a great post by Matthew Green. As well as the obvious security implications, there’s another angle to the Krack incident that Techdirt readers may find of note. It turns out that one important reason why what is a fairly simple flaw was not spotted earlier is that the main documentation was not easily accessible.

=> ↺ Crippling crypto weakness opens millions of smartcards to cloning

• The defect has now been confirmed to affect the first line of Gemalto IDPrime.NET smartcards. The cards have been on the market since 2004 at the latest, when Gemalto predecessor Axalto announced Microsoft employees were using the card to secure access to the software maker’s network, by, among other things, providing two-factor authentication to company employees worldwide. During the 12 years the cards are known to have been in use, Netherlands-based Gemalto has shipped cards numbering in the millions or even the tens or hundreds of millions.

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ Suicide Attacks in Afghanistan Cap Bloody Week in Which 250 Killed

• In Afghanistan, a suicide bomber ambushed Afghan army cadets as they left their base in Kabul Saturday, killing 15 of them. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the bombing, as well as a rocket attack earlier in the day on a military base used by the U.S.-led coalition. On Friday, a suicide bomber attacked a Shia mosque in Kabul, killing 56 people and wounding 55 others during prayers. ISIS claimed responsibility for that attack. Separately, an attack on a Sunni mosque in central Afghanistan’s Ghor province killed 20 people. The attacks capped a week of violence that saw more than 250 people killed across Afghanistan.

=> ↺ Somalia: Roadside Bomb Attack Kills 11 Civilians

• In Somalia, a roadside bomb exploded Sunday south of the capital Mogadishu, tearing through a minibus and killing at least 11 people. A witness said he saw a Somali military vehicle pass near the time of the explosion and that the civilians were probably killed in error. There’s been no claim of responsibility for the attack, which came a week after a bombing in Mogadishu killed at least 358 people and wounded hundreds of others.

=> ↺ NYT Laments ‘Forever Wars’ Its Editorials Helped Create

• Corporate media have a long history of lamenting wars they themselves helped sell the American public, but it’s rare so many wars and so much hypocrisy are distilled into one editorial. On Monday, the New York Times (10/22/17) lamented the expansion of America’s “forever wars” overseas, without once noting that every war mentioned is one the editorial board has itself endorsed, while failing to oppose any of the “engagements” touched on in the editorial.

• [...]

• When confronted with this fact on Twitter, New York Times foreign and defense policy editorial writer Carol Giacomo responded, “In last decade, NYT editorial board has raised many questions about US military engagements.” Raised many questions? Well, then, never mind; let’s leave the Times’ role in the creation of said global empire unexamined.

=> ↺ Report: Middle East the primary destination for record Finnish arms exports in 2016

• Finnish materiel exports reached a record 133.4 million euros in 2016, according to the SaferGlobe peace and security think tank. The organisation said Monday that the bulk of exports – some 84 million euros — were sold to countries in the Middle East.

• Last year’s record sales includes a major deal including 40 8×8 Armored Modular Vehicles, sold by Finnish defence contractor Patria to the United Arab Emirates.

• “Finland has long had ambitions to stimulate exports to the Middle East. They have been realised,” said SaferGlobe researcher Kari Paasonen.

=> ↺ Villagers Suspected of Luring US Soldiers into Niger Ambush

• A local official and an analyst say residents of the Niger village where four U.S. soldiers were killed this month may have delayed the soldiers while an ambush was set up and helped to lead the victims into a deadly trap.

• “The attackers, the bandits, the terrorists have never lacked accomplices among local populations,” said Almou Hassane, mayor of Tongo-Tongo where the attack took place, in what is believed to be his first interview with a Western news organization.

• The village chief in Tongo-Tongo, Mounkaila Alassane, has been arrested since the attack, Hassane said, lending credibility to the suspicion of local involvement. He is in government custody, according to several officials.

Transparency/Investigative Reporting

=> ↺ A Turf War Is Tearing Apart the Intel Community’s Watchdog Office

Finance

=> ↺ Sadiq Khan: second Brexit vote possible if parliament rejects deal

• Sadiq Khan has suggested a second referendum could be on the cards if parliament rejected the Brexit deal eventually struck between the government and the 27 remaining EU member states.

• “Of course that’s one of the options because you can’t have a situation where our parliament is supposed to be sovereign, our parliament rejects the deal made by our government and everyone is in paralysis,” the London mayor told Sky News.

• Earlier, he called for businesses to be given certainty on what would happen when the UK leaves the bloc in March 2019. His comments came after the Goldman Sachs chief executive, Lloyd Blankfein, hinted that the finance firm could move some of its operations from London to Frankfurt.

=> ↺ Americans Are Retiring Later, Dying Sooner and Sicker In-Between

=> ↺ How to End Crony Capitalism

• The largest corporations and richest people in America – who donated billions of dollars to Republican candidates the House and Senate in the 2106 election – appear on the way to getting what they paid for: a giant tax cut.

• The New York Times reports that business groups are meeting frequently with key Republicans in order to shape the tax bill, whose details remain secret.

• Speed and secrecy are critical. The quicker Republicans get this done, and without hearings, the less likely will the rest of the country discover how much it will cost in foregone Medicaid and Medicare or ballooning budget deficits.

=> ↺ Chipotle downgraded by Bank of America on concerns that labor is still too expensive

=> ↺ How Silicon Valley Divided Society and Made Everyone Raging Mad

• It increasingly feels like it is doing the precise opposite, fueling a tribal form of identity politics based on narrow markers of gender, race, religion or so on. This isn’t the fault of the net of course—identity politics far predates digital communication—but it has introduced a new urgency and force.

=> ↺ Fiscal conservatism, RIP

• America needs a party that argues for fiscal restraint

=> ↺ Government distances itself from ‘McCarthyite’ letter from Tory whip

• The government distanced itself from a “McCarthyite” letter sent by a Conservative whip to U.K. universities demanding to know the names of academics teaching material on Brexit.

• Brexiteer MP Chris Heaton-Harris wrote to universities asking them to supply him with “the names of [their] professors involved in the teaching of European affairs, with particular reference to Brexit.”

• The letter, dated October 3, also requested “a copy of the syllabus” alongside “links to online lectures.”

=> ↺ UK universities fear censorship after lawmaker asks how they teach Brexit

=> ↺ Conservative MP demands universities give him names of lecturers teaching about Brexit

=> ↺ Universities deplore ‘McCarthyism’ as MP demands list of tutors lecturing on Brexit

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ Pirate Party Wins Big in Czech Parliament Elections

• The Czech Pirate Party has booked a significant win in local parliamentary elections. With more than ten percent of the total vote, the Pirates became the third largest party in the country, entering parliament with 22 seats. With its newly gained power, the party hopes to overhaul copyright legislation, fight corruption, and abolish Internet censorship, among other things.

=> ↺ Democrats Plan to Name Lobbyists, Operatives Superdelegates

• The new members-at-large of the Democratic National Committee will vote on party rules and in 2020 will be convention delegates free to vote for a primary candidate of their choice. They include lobbyists for Venezuela’s national petroleum company and for Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., according to a list obtained by Bloomberg News. At least three of the people worked for either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders in 2016 while also casting ballots as superdelegates.

=> ↺ The DNC picked a bunch of sleazy lobbyists as superdelegates, can’t figure out why no one is donating

• The 2018 “superdelegates” to the Democratic National Convention will include lobbyists for Rupert Murdoch’s Newscorp, CITGO petroleum, Citigroup, and other large corporations.

=> ↺ DNC enters 2018 in cash panic

=> ↺ Now we know: the right is as PC as the left

=> ↺ CNN takes aim at President Donald Trump and his TV surrogates’ lies in a stunning ad

• “This is an apple,” the ad begins with a red apple on a white screen. “Some people might try to tell you it’s a banana. They might scream, ‘Banana, banana, banana,’ over and over again. They might put banana in all caps. You might even start to believe this is a banana. But it’s not. This is an apple.”

• The words “facts first,” then flash on the screen before the CNN logo.

=> ↺ Congress: Trump Won’t Implement Russia Sanctions—and He Won’t Tell Us Why

• When Congress sent President Donald Trump a bill in July that slapped new sanctions on Russia, the president signed the legislation reluctantly while lambasting it as an example of congressional overreach.

• The administration has since blown past an October 1 deadline to implement the sanctions. Lawmakers are now searching for answers as to whether the president is even planning to follow the law that they passed and he signed.

• “If they don’t cooperate, then further actions need to be taken,” Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) told The Daily Beast on Monday. The Arizona senator, who chairs the powerful Armed Services Committee and has spoken out against the White House on its attitude toward Moscow, said the administration has left him in the dark.

=> ↺ “Useful Idiots”

• Yet another trans-Atlantic think tank has cranked out a report attacking Russia, and yet again the focus of their ire is RT.com.

• Of course, all media outlets get attacked for “propaganda” (you should see the Daily Mail BTL comments about the BBC!), but this particular play book is getting old.

=> ↺ Russian Trolling of US Social Media May Have Been Much Greater Than We Thought

=> ↺ FCC Likely To Use Thanksgiving Holiday To Hide Its Unpopular Plan To Kill Net Neutrality

• Consumer groups believe that the FCC is planning to formally unveil its unpopular plan to gut net neutrality the day before Thanksgiving, apparently in the hopes of burying media backlash in the hustle and bustle of holiday preparation. At that time, the FCC is expected to not only unveil the core text of their Orwell-inspired “Restore Internet Freedom” proposal, but schedule a formal date for the inevitable, final vote to kill the rules.

• While announcing bad news right before a holiday works in some instances, net neutrality has been such a hot-button topic for so long, the ploy isn’t likely to soften criticism of Trump or the FCC in the slightest. These fairly modest consumer protections have broad, bipartisan support, since our collective disdain for uncompetitive giants like Comcast tends to bridge even the starkest partisan divide. Eliminating these rules is, by any measure, little more than a brazen gift to one of the least competitive and least popular industries in America, and anybody telling you otherwise is either financially conflicted or misinformed.

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ Google Removed Catalonian Referendum App Following Spanish Court Order

• And you can understand why he’s disappointed. But, the real problem here, seems to be going back to the same problem we keep identifying over and over again: deep centralization of the digital world. Part of the very promise of Android was that it was supposed to be open, and people weren’t supposed to be locked into just Google’s app store. And, indeed, there are competing app stores — but the general argument around them (with the possible exception of Amazon’s competing Android app store) is that if you want to keep your device secure, you’ll only download via Google’s app store.

• And then we’re back to a problem where there’s a centralized choke point for censorship — one which the Spanish government is able to exploit to make that app much more difficult to access. Google, for its part, said it took the app down because it had received a valid court order. And, that’s true, but it’s also opening up yet another path to widespread censorship. Google has stood up against similar situations in the past, but the decision of whether or not a movement should be stifled should never come down to whether or not a giant company like Google decides its worth taking a moral stand against a legal court order. The problem is much more systemic, and its built into this world where we’ve started to build back up gatekeepers.

=> ↺ Judge Bars News Station From Showing Pictures In News Story, Admits It’s Prior Restraint, Shrugs

• Amid an uptick in stories about courts issuing restraining orders that amount to prior restraint on speech, it’s worth remembering that prior restraint is generally viewed as plainly unconstitutional except if it is applied narrowly and for dire reasons such as national security concerns. Despite that, prior restraint has come up quite a bit as of late, in cases ranging from trademark disputes between comic conventions to mattress review sites to anti-abortion activism. These expansions of prior restraint should concern anyone interested in free speech, of course, but it takes a special kind of judge to not only issue a prior restraint order against a news organization, but to admit it and say he doesn’t care.

=> ↺ Is Hollywood ‘Exploiting’ Anti-Trafficking Organization To Support SESTA?

• We’ve been a bit perplexed about how much momentum SESTA has. As explained, it’s a bill that is called the “Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act” but it has many serious problems that could impact just about any online service, even if they have no idea that they’re being used to support sex trafficking. Also, there’s some aspect of moral panic to all of this, as the actual statistics suggest that the size of the sex trafficking problem is not nearly as big as many politicians and organizations claim. That’s not to say it’s not a problem — because clearly it is a problem, and an important one. But it does suggest that broad-brush solutions with massive consequences to the entire internet should be reviewed a bit more carefully.

=> ↺ Trump’s Favorite Law Firm Loses Massive RICO SLAPP Suit Against Greenpeace, But Has Another One Already Going

• We talk quite a bit about the problem of so-called SLAPP lawsuits around here. SLAPP standing for “Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation.” It’s a terrible acronym, but what it really means is generally the rich and powerful filing bogus lawsuits against the less powerful for the purpose of harassing and silencing them. That is, even if the plaintiffs recognize that they will lose, it’s worth it to them to file the lawsuit anyway, because the process itself can be so destructive to the defendants. This is why anti-SLAPP laws are so powerful, allowing defendants to both get rid of such lawsuits quickly and to get back legal fees, thus minimizing at least some of the damage of SLAPP suits. Now, there are some lawyers who seem to be specializing in filing SLAPP-style lawsuits. One law firm that appears to be building up such a reputation happens to be President Donald Trump’s personal law firm, Kasowitz Benson Torres. We’ve discussed how its founding and managing partner, Marc Kasowitz, had threatened to sue the NY Times over its reporting on women claiming Trump had touched them inappropriately — a threat he failed to follow through on within the statute of limitations in New York.

=> ↺ “Racist!” — The No Muss, No Fuss, No-Need-To-Debate Way To Shut People Up

• ohn McWhorter writes on CNN that “educated liberals” overuse the term “racist” — to the point of meaninglessness.

• “White supremacist” is another one that gets splashed around every old place.

• Absurdly, I’ve seen that one stuck on various practicing Orthodox Jews on Twitter.

=> ↺ Facebook moving non-promoted posts out of news feed in trial

• A new system being trialled in six countries including Slovakia, Serbia and Sri Lanka sees almost all non-promoted posts shifted over to a secondary feed, leaving the main feed focused entirely on original content from friends, and adverts.

• The change has seen users’ engagement with Facebook pages drop precipitously, from 60% to 80% . If replicated more broadly, such a change would destroy many smaller publishers, as well as larger ones with an outsized reliance on social media referrals for visitors.

=> ↺ Stockton: Banned books, unnecessary censorship

• Over the last couple weeks this “Banned Books List” has been making its way around social media. Basically, this a list of literature that school districts have banned for reasons from “It makes us uncomfortable” to “we don’t want someone to get offended”.

• I have to tell you, this list is an absolute joke. Classic novels like “To Kill A Mockingbird” and “Catch-22” banned, for what? To keep people comfortable in safe spaces?

=> ↺ A brief recent history of media self-censorship

• It is the season for taking on media owners over the censorship they impose on editorial staff. And it is being done on Facebook. NDTV’s Srinivasan Jain kicked off earlier this week with a post which said that a report by him and a colleague on loans given to Jay Shah’s companies was taken down from NDTV’s website because the channel’s lawyer said it needed to be removed for ‘legal vetting’ and that it had not been restored though the report is based entirely on “facts in the public domain” and “makes no unsubstantiated or unwarranted assertions”.

=> ↺ Dalhousie University accused of censorship after student investigated for ‘white fragility’ Facebook comment

• A Canadian civil liberties group is accusing Dalhousie University of censoring the political expression of a student leader under investigation for her social media comments.

• In a letter to Dalhousie president Richard Florizone, the Ontario Civil Liberties Association says the university is using its disciplinary powers to suppress freedom of speech.

=> ↺ EPA’s climate website removes resources to fight climate change

• In George Orwell’s infamous dystopian novel “1984,” the so-called Ministry of Truth is an agency that spews propaganda, determining what is and, perhaps even more importantly, what isn’t the truth. A recent analysis from the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI) was made public on Friday revealed that an Environmental Protection Agency climate website had gotten rid of “dozens of online resources dedicated to helping local governments address climate change,” the New York Times reports. It’s the latest move the agency has taken to delegitimize, or otherwise downplay the threat climate change presents.

=> ↺ ‘Blatant Censorship’: Trump EPA Abruptly Muzzles Its Own Climate Scientists

=> ↺ Scott Pruitt’s EPA Cancels Talks of Agency Scientists Scheduled to Speak on Climate Change

=> ↺ The Trump White House Ramps Up Its War on Science

=> ↺ EPA Prevents Scientists From Speaking About Climate Change at Conference

=> ↺ EPA cancels scientists’ presentation on climate change at R.I. conference

=> ↺ EPA cancels 3 scientists’ lectures

=> ↺ Scott Pruitt and EPA Accused of Scientific Censorship After Pulling Climate Researchers From Conference

=> ↺ Censorship alleged as EPA orders scientists not to speak about report on climate change

=> ↺ EPA’s Pruitt accused of scientific censorship for blocking talks

=> ↺ EPA Censors Scientists At Climate Change Conference

=> ↺ EPA yanks scientists’ conference presentations, including on climate change

=> ↺ First on CNN: Security costs skyrocket at ‘lightning rod’ EPA

=> ↺ EPA keeps US scientists from presenting climate report, agency accused of censorship

=> ↺ MRC President Bozell Blasts Network Censorship of Clinton-Uranium Scandal

=> ↺ Bozell: ‘The Media Are Now Complicit in a Blatant Cover-up’

=> ↺ The ’70s Thai Magazines That Turned Censorship into an Art Form

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ FBI director: Unbreakable encryption is a “huge, huge problem”

• FBI Director Christopher Wray told a conference of law enforcement officials on Sunday that he and his colleagues have been unable to open nearly 7,000 digital devices in the first 11 months of the 2017 fiscal year.

• “To put it mildly, this is a huge, huge problem,” Wray said at the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference in Philadelphia, according to the Associated Press. “It impacts investigations across the board—narcotics, human trafficking, counterterrorism, counterintelligence, gangs, organized crime, child exploitation.”

• Wray’s remarks come less than two weeks after another top law enforcement official, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, called for “responsible encryption”—a seemingly magical method by which only law enforcement would be able to defeat the encryption on a digitally locked device.

=> ↺ How Silicon Valley’s Dirty Tricks Helped Stall Broadband Privacy in California

• Across the country, state lawmakers are fighting to restore the Internet privacy rights of their constituents that Congress and the President misguidedly repealed earlier this year. The facts and public opinion are on their side, but the recent battle to pass California’s broadband privacy bill, A.B. 375, suggests that they will face a massive misinformation campaign launched by the telecom lobby and, sadly, joined by major tech companies.

• The tech industry lent their support to a host of misleading scare tactics.

=> ↺ FBI Director Wray is Wrong About Section 702 Surveillance

• Newly-minted FBI Director Christopher Wray threw out several justifications for the continued, warrantless government search of American communications. He’s wrong on all accounts.

• In a presentation hosted by The Heritage Foundation, Wray warned of a metaphorical policy “wall” that, more than 15 years ago, stood between the U.S. government’s multiple intelligence-gathering agencies. That wall prevented quick data sharing, he said. It prevented quick “dot-connecting” to match threats to actors, he said. And, he said, it partly prevented the U.S. from stopping the September 11 attacks.

• “When people, now, sit back and say, ‘Three thousand people died on 9/11, how could the U.S. government let this happen?’” Wray said. “And one of the answers is, well, they had this wall.”

=> ↺ Senators want to reform a surveillance law before Trump renews it

=> ↺ Closing Section 702’s Front-Door Search Loophole: A Critical Protection for Americans

=> ↺ Latest FISA Amendments Act 702 surveillance legislation: SSCI, HJC

• Lots of legislative action on FISA Amendments Act Section 702 warrantless surveillance is happening with drafts that are not public even though they are not classifed. Here are some.

• The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on October 24, 2017, will mark up – behind closed doors – a bill being pushed by its chairman, Senator Richard Burr, Republican of North Carolina. Burr isn’t showing his draft to the public, and not clear what it will look like when the hearing is done, but here is a copy of the draft legislation, with annotations, heading into that hearing.

=> ↺ Apple Pay now in 20 markets, nabs 90% of all mobile contactless transactions where active

• Bailey also announced that the service is launching in Denmark, Finland, Sweden, and the UAE in the next few days, bringing the total number of countries where it is used up to 20. And she said that 4,000 issuers worldwide now work with the wallet (that is, there are now 4,000 credit and debit card issuers whose cards can now be uploaded to and used via Apple Pay).

=> ↺ No subsidised food without Aadhaar for Jharkahnd’s poor: Reality check reveals ugly details

• Jharkhand’s poor are being denied subsidised supplies under the public distribution system for not linking Aadhaar to their ration cards.

=> ↺ Linking your bank account with Aadhaar is mandatory, here’s what happens if you don’t

• Turns out you have to link your bank account with Aadhaar after all. The Reserve Bank of India on Saturday stepped in to strike down news reports that claimed, quoting an RTI reply, it was not necessary to link the 12-digit biometric identification number with bank accounts, saying the directive remained in force under anti-money laundering rules.

• So, the December 31 deadline stays put for now.

=> ↺ U.S. Will Curb ‘Sneak-and-Peek’ Searches Microsoft Sued Over

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ Stand Up Against Bullying, or We All Lose

• I have never liked bullies. I still don’t.

• A few weeks ago, while coaching my daughter’s under-10 soccer team, we encountered a referee who was a bully. During the championship game of a tournament, this referee did not exhibit professionalism or mutual respect toward our team and sideline. Over the course of the game, he showed bias against our players and the parents of the players. He made multiple incorrect calls and affected the flow of the game. His actions may have influenced the outcome of the game, which we lost by one goal, 5-4, in overtime.

• Our team—nine girls under the age of 10—was heartbroken. They had played their hearts out to reach the championship game, winning four games over the course of a blazing hot Sunday. Tears started to flow.

• The head coach of our team and I attempted to console the girls. We did not make excuses or blame the referee. We used the loss as a teachable moment. “Sometimes in sports, as in life, we face obstacles outside of our control,” we explained. “We have to overcome these challenges to succeed. We have to find a way to win. We don’t always get the result we want. But in failure, we have to remember that the journey is the reward and learn from the experience to become better.”

=> ↺ L.A. Times: 38 Women Accuse Director James Toback of Sexual Misconduct

• Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times reports that 38 women are accusing Hollywood screenwriter and director James Toback of sexual assault and harassment. In separate interviews, the women describe how Toback would lure them to a hotel room or movie trailer with the promise of making them a Hollywood star, before masturbating in front of them or making unwanted sexual contact. Toback denied the charges, telling the L.A. Times he had never met any of the 38 women, or if he had, he didn’t remember them.

=> ↺ [Older] We Snuck into Seattle’s Super Secret White Nationalist Convention

• Virtually every time I use the word “Nazi” I’m using it as an insult. In the world of millennial white nationalism, there aren’t a ton of people who actually self-identify as Nazis. Despite usually agreeing with everything the Nazis did and believing the Holocaust is just “anti-white propaganda,” they always claim a technical reason for why they aren’t “National Socialists.” None of these reasons would ever make sense to anybody outside the community and “I’m not a Nazi, but” is one of the most common white nationalist recruitment tricks to have people hear them out.

=> ↺ Here’s How Prison and Jail Systems Brutalize Women, Especially Mothers

• Nearly 220,000 women are incarcerated in the United States, leaving too many children without their mom.

=> ↺ Police body cams had no “statistically significant effect” in DC

• To conduct the study, researchers identified officers across the seven metro police districts that fit a specific criteria: the officer had to have active, full duty administrative status without a scheduled leave of absence during the study; the officer had to hold a rank of sergeant or below; and the officer had to be assigned to patrol duties in a patrol district or to a non-administrative role at a police station. From there, officers were split into control (no body cams) and treatment groups. “Our sample consisted of 2,224 MPD members, with 1,035 members assigned to the control group, and 1,189 members assigned to the treatment group,” the study notes.

• The study (PDF) then measured four outcome factors: reported uses of force, civilian complaints, policing activities (which includes tickets, warnings, arrests, etc.), and judicial outcomes, specifically whether MPD arrest charges led to prosecutions.

• DC Police Chief Peter Newsham told NPR that everybody was expecting a different conclusion about the agency’s $5.1 million program. “I think we’re surprised by the result. I think a lot of people were suggesting that the body-worn cameras would change behavior. There was no indication that the cameras changed behavior at all.”

=> ↺ 11 arrested, water cannon deployed as Orthodox Jews protest military draft in Jerusalem (VIDEO)

• The tensions escalated after some 45 students of yeshiva – an institution where Jewish religious texts are taught – were arrested and still remain in military prison for failing to show up for the draft or obtain the military service exemptions.

• The Jerusalem Faction leader, Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach, has told the youths to refrain from getting exemptions and cooperating with the military in any other way. The move made hundreds of young men in the area eligible for arrest on charges of dodging conscription.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ Cisco Buys Software Maker BroadSoft for About $1.9 Billion

=> ↺ An Over-The-Top Approach to Internet Regulation in Developing Countries

• Increased smartphone usage and availability of wireless broadband has propelled the use of Internet based platforms and services that often compete with similar services based on older technologies. For example services like Facebook, Skype and WhatsApp that offer voice or video calls over the Internet compete with traditional SMS and voice calls over telecom networks. Such platforms have gained in popularity particularly in developing countries because calling over the Internet is far cheaper than making calls on telecom networks. Online video streaming and TV services like Netflix and online similarly compete with traditional broadcasters and network providers.

• These online applications and services are transforming traditional sectors and changing the economic landscape of the markets. The increasing popularity of such apps and services, often referred to by telecommunications regulators as “Over-the-top” or OTT services, brings new regulatory challenges for governments. Historically, most of these services have not required a licence or been required to pay any licensing fee. As the use of such services picks up in developing countries, governments are rushing to create rules that would subject OTT providers to local taxation, security, and content regulation obligations—often under pressure from telco incumbents who are seeking protection from change and competition.

=> ↺ Govt looks to hike minimum net speed nearly four-fold

• Asked whether 2 mbps – which is also being pushed forward by regulator Trai – will be sufficient for digital transformation, she said, “2 mbps is the basic minimum. We should definitely mandate this. If at all, it should be higher than that. It cannot be lower than that.”

=> ↺ Michigan Lawmaker Flees Twitter After Reports Highlight She Helped AT&T Push Anti-Competition Broadband Law

• Last week we noted how Freshman Michigan Representative Michele Hoitenga has been pushing a broadband competition-killing bill she clearly neither wrote nor understands. The industry-backed bill, HB 5009 (pdf), would ban Michigan towns and cities from using taxpayer funds to build or operate community broadband networks, and would hamstring these communities’ abilities to strike public/private partnerships. The bill is just the latest example of broadband industry protectionist laws ISPs ghost write, then shovel unobstructed through the corrupt state legislative process.

• ISPs want their cake and to eat it too; they don’t want to upgrade or deploy broadband into low ROI areas, but they don’t want others to either. And they certainly don’t want outside added pressure disrupting the good thing (read: duopoly regulatory capture resulting in no competition and higher rates) they’ve enjoyed for fifteen years. While companies like AT&T could deter towns and cities from looking for creative alternatives by offering better, cheaper service, it’s much less expensive to throw money at lawmakers who, with the help of groups like ALEC, craft and pass laws protecting the duopoly status quo.

DRM

=> ↺ Portugal Bans Use of DRM to Limit Access to Public Domain Works

• At EFF, we’ve become all too accustomed to bad news on copyright come out of Europe, so it’s refreshing to hear that Portugal has recently passed a law on copyright that helps to strike a fairer balance between users and copyright holders on DRM. The law doesn’t abolish legal protection for DRM altogether—unfortunately, that wouldn’t be possible for Portugal to do unilaterally, because it would be inconsistent with European Union law and with the WIPO Copyright Treaty to which the EU is a signatory. However, Law No. 36/2017 of June 2, 2017, which entered into force on June 3, 2017, does grant some important new exceptions to the law’s anti-circumvention provisions, which make it easier for users to exercise their rights to access content without being treated as criminals.

• The amendments to Articles 217 and 221 of Portugal’s Code of Copyright and Related Rights do three things. First, they provide that the anti-circumvention ban doesn’t apply to circumvention of DRM in order to enjoy the normal exercise of copyright limitations and exceptions that are provided by Portuguese law. Although Portugal doesn’t have a generalized fair use exception, the more specific copyright exceptions in Articles 75(2), 81, 152(4) and 189(1) of its law do include some key fair uses; including reproduction for private use, for news reporting, by libraries and archives, in teaching and education, in quotation, for persons with disabilities, and for digitizing orphan works. The circumvention of DRM in order to exercise these user rights is now legally protected.

=> ↺ Portugal passes the world’s first reasonable DRM law

• Last June, Portugal enacted Law No. 36/2017 which bans putting DRM on public domain media or government works, and allows the public to break DRM that interferes with their rights in copyright, including private copying, accessibility adaptation, archiving, reporting and commentary and more.

Intellectual Monopolies

=> ↺ Protecting intellectual property is a necessary evil but nations must work together

Trademarks

=> ↺ Long Trail Brewing Sues East Coast Apparel Company Over ‘Take A Hike’ T-Shirt

• The last time we checked in with Long Trail Brewing, the Vermont brewery was busy fighting a Minnesota brewer that had dared to put a stick figure of a hiker on its beer can. It seems that rather than basing its trademark legal expeditions on any real or potential customer confusion, Long Trail views trademark law as a vehicle for monopoly and lawsuit-driven income. Long Trail is certainly not alone in this view, unfortunately, but it does have a penchant for taking this sort of thing to ridiculous lengths.

• Such as going after an apparel company for a simple t-shirt using an incredibly generic phrase, for instance. Long Trail has initiated a trademark lawsuit with a company called Chowdaheadz because the latter dared to make a shirt with the phrase “Take a hike” on it. As the filing explains, Long Trail has trademarked the phrase for its use and has sold apparel with the phrase on it.

Copyrights

=> ↺ The Pirate Bay’s Iconic .SE Domain Name Is Back From The Dead

• The Pirate Bay’s iconic .SE domain name is the primary method by which pirates access their favorite torrent website. However, in a surprise development, last week, the domain name was deactivated.

• It seemed as the historic domain name was expired and the people were no longer able to visit the notorious website. However, as per a new report by TorrentFreak, thepiratebay.se is now operating normally and sending the visitors to thepiratebay.org.

=> ↺ TV formats potentially eligible for copyright protection as dramatic works under UK law

• This decision sheds light on an area of UK copyright that has remained uncertain for a long time, also due to the rigid and closed system of categories envisaged by the CDPA.

• However, as the outcome of the case confirms, wannabe holders of copyright in TV formats must pay substantial attention when drafting relevant documents, and provide as many details and information as possible. Another crucial aspect when it comes to potentially commercially valuable works like TV formats is to draft and rely on robust non-disclosure agreements, also to offset the fact that relevant documents should be sufficiently detailed.

=> ↺ MPAA and RIAA’s Megaupload Lawsuits Remain on Hold

• A federal court in Virginia has granted Megaupload’s request to keep the cases filed by the music and movie companies on hold until April next year. Since all crucial data on Megaupload’s servers was preserved earlier this year, the MPAA and RIAA have no objections against the stay, which was triggered by slow progress in the criminal case.

=> ↺ Copyright Trolls Hit Thousands of Swedish ‘Pirates’ With $550 ‘Fines’

• Many thousands of alleged movie pirates in Sweden have been hit with demands for cash settlements in recent weeks. The ‘fines’, which amount to around $550 each, are being sent by Njord Law, a law firm acting on behalf of international copyright trolls active in several different countries, including the United States.

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