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● 12.16.17

● Links 16/12/2017: Mesa 17.2.7, Wine 3.0 RC2, Kdenlive 17.12.0, Mir 0.29

Posted in News Roundup at 9:51 am by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

=> ↺ CoreOS’s Open Cloud Services Could Bring Cloud Portability to Container-Native Apps

• With the release of Tectonic 1.8, CoreOS provides a way to easily deploy container-native applications as services, even across multiple service providers and in-house resources.

• “We take open source APIs, make them super easy to consume, and create a catalog of these things to run on top of Kubernetes so they are portable no matter where you go,” said Brandon Philips, CoreOS chief technology officer.

=> ↺ Kubernetes 1.9 release brings greater stability and storage features

• The Kubernetes developer community is capping off a successful year with the release of Kubernetes 1.9, adding important new features that should help to further encourage enterprise adoption.

• Kubernetes is the most popular container orchestrator management software. It’s used to simplify the deployment and management of software containers, which are a popular tool among developers that allows them to run their applications across multiple computing environments without making any changes to the underlying code.

=> ↺ What’s new in Kubernetes containers

• Promoted to beta in Kubernetes 1.8 and now in production release in Kubernetes 1.9, the Apps Workloads API provides ways to define workloads based on their behaviors, such as long-running apps that need persistent state.

=> ↺ Linux Vs. Unix

• ​In computer time, a substantial part of the population has a misconception that the Unix and Linux operating systems are one and the same. However, the opposite is true. Let’s look at it from a closer look.

=> ↺ Open Source OS Still supporting 32-bit Architecture and Why it’s Important

• One after the other, Linux distributions are dropping 32-bit support. Or, to be accurate, they drop support for the Intel x86 32-bit architecture (IA-32). Indeed, computers based on x86_64 hardware (x86-64) are superior in every way to their 32-bits counterpart: they are more powerful, run faster, are more compact, and more energy efficient. Not mentioning their price has considerably decreased in just a few years.

Desktop

=> ↺ Chromebooks and Office 365 together will challenge Windows laptops

• It’s no secret that I’m not a Windows fan. I’m beginning to wonder if Microsoft isn’t either.

• Hear me out. On Nov. 27, Chromebook users discovered that Office 365 would run on some of their laptops. To be exact, we now know you can download and run Office 365 on Samsung Chromebook Pro, Pixelbook, Acer Chromebook 15, and the Acer C771.

=> ↺ Looking Glass Released For KVM Frame Relay, High Performance Windows VM Gaming

• Geoffrey McRae has published the code to the “Looking Glass” project he’s been working on as a “extremely low-latency” KVM frame relay implementation for guests with VGA PCI pass-through.

• Long story short this allows for a graphics card PCI pass-through setup with a KVM guest whereby no separate monitor is needed but rather Looking Glass is like a virtual display for that GPU dedicated to the VM and displays the VM’s rendered contents on your main monitor/GPU. Up to now those wanting to use a secondary graphics card pass-through setup with a virtual machine had to use a separate monitor, but with Looking Glass you can get by with a single monitor for the system.

Server

=> ↺ 5 Kubernetes must-reads: Tips and trends

• Kubernetes is having a moment – but don’t look for its popularity to wane anytime soon. As enterprises move beyond experimenting and start working in earnest with containers, the number of containers multiply: So do the manual chores. Orchestration tools like Kubernetes add automated help.

• “Running a few standalone containers for development purposes won’t rob your IT team of time or patience: A standards-based container runtime by itself will do the job,” Red Hat technology evangelist Gordon Haff recently noted. “But once you scale to a production environment and multiple applications spanning many containers, it’s clear that you need a way to coordinate those containers to deliver the individual services. As containers accumulate, complexity grows. Eventually, you need to take a step back and group containers along with the coordinated services they need, such as networking, security, and telemetry.” (See Haff’s full article, How enterprise IT uses Kubernetes to tame container complexity.)

=> ↺ Amazon Linux 2

• Amazon Linux 2 is the next generation Amazon Linux operating system. It provides a high performance, stable, and secure execution environment for cloud and enterprise applications. Amazon Linux 2 will offer extended availability of software updates for the core operating system through 5 years of long-term support and provides access to the latest software packages through the Amazon Linux Extras repository.

=> ↺ Amazon Linux 2 Rolls Out For EC2, On-Site Virtual Machine Images

• Amazon AWS has announced their “next generation” version of their Amazon Linux operating system intended for running on their EC2 compute cloud as well as on-site via VMware/VirtualBox/Hyper-V images that are free to all.

=> ↺ Amazon Linux 2 Benchmarks, 6-Way Linux OS EC2 Compute Cloud Comparison

• With Amazon AWS this week having released Amazon Linux 2 LTS I was excited to put this updated cloud-focused operating system through some performance tests to see how it stacks up with the more well known Linux distributions.

=> ↺ AWS Releases Prelim Amazon Linux 2 Server

• Amazon Web Services Inc. (AWS) this week announced the release of its next Linux server OS, Amazon Linux 2.

• Dubbed build 2017.12, the preliminary version of Amazon Linux 2 is now generally available to all public AWS regions. Described as a “candidate” release in the AWS announcement, the final build is yet to come.

=> ↺ Modernizing application delivery with container platforms

• Demands for faster production times, higher quality and more predictable cost management are posing significant challenges for development teams. In-house software development is essential in achieving these and other agency objectives. Exacerbating the demands on development teams is often the need to successfully release new applications, while also updating existing ones.

• From a technical aspect, at the center of the challenges for developers, is the need to reliably get software to run as it moves between computing environments. Containerization represents the best way for developers to accomplish this task, with containers driving operational efficiency and competitive advantages.

=> ↺ Building Open Source IoT Ecosystems

=> ↺ Invaluable tips and tricks for troubleshooting Linux

Kernel Space

=> ↺ Stable kernels 4.14.6 and 4.9.69

• Two new stable kernels have been released by Greg Kroah-Hartman: 4.14.6 and 4.9.69. As usual, they contain fixes all over the kernel tree; users of those series should upgrade.

=> ↺ Linux 4.14.6

=> ↺ Linux 4.9.69

=> ↺ Systemd 236 Brings Support For LUKS2 Encrypted Partitions, New Options

• Lennart Poettering has announced the release of systemd 236 as the init system’s final release of 2017.

• Systemd 236 is another significant feature release and includes support for the LUKS2 on-disk format for encrypted partitions, bootctl list can now list all available boot menu options, improved cgroup option, various systemd-networkd networking improvements, support for setting the initial keyboard mapping systemd-firstboot, several new systemd-resolve command line arguments, and other minor improvements throughout the systemd landscape.

=> ↺ VirtIO DRM Window Server Support: Letting Guest VMs Interface With Host’s Compositor

• • Collabora’s Tomeu Vizoso is working on a interesting VirtIO DRM patch that lets clients running within a virtual machine communicate with a display compositor of the host system.

• Based off work done by Google on their ChromeOS kernel with a “virtio_wl” driver, Tomeu is adding support to the VirtIO DRM driver so that clients running within a virtual machine can communicate with the host system’s compositor. Communication is done over the protocol supported by the compositor, e.g. Wayland. Similarly, the ChromeOS VirtIO Wayland work is about offering a virtual device used by a guest VM use a Wayland server on the host system transparently and just focused on Wayland support given the ChromeOS focus.

=> ↺ Linux Should Now Work For Some Knockoff PlayStation 3 Controllers

• While the Linux kernel has supported the official Sony PlayStation 3 controller as an input device, some of the off-brand/knockoff models haven’t quite behaved correctly on Linux but that’s now being rectified.

• Red Hat’s Bastien Nocera has made a necessary change to the Sony HID code in the Linux 4.15 kernel to address these knockoff PlayStation 3 controllers as well as a change in BlueZ Git, for the upcoming BlueZ 5.48 release.

=> ↺ ZFS On Linux 0.7.4 Brings Linux 4.14 Support, Fixes

• ZFS On Linux 0.7.4 was released this week as the newest stable release for this ZFS file-system implementation for the Linux kernel.

=> ↺ 6WIND Announces TCP Boost to Resolve Linux Bottlenecks in TCP-Based Applications

• 6WIND, a high-performance networking software company, today announced TCP Boost, a high performance Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) stack for proxy and server deployments. TCP is a client/server protocol used to communicate between applications over an IP network. However, the performance of TCP-based applications is limited by common bottlenecks in the Linux kernel. To overcome these limitations, 6WIND offers TCP Boost as a solution, based on its 6WINDGate™ packet processing software, which is widely deployed as the industry’s highest performance TCP userland stack since 2010.

=> ↺ Linux Kernel Developer: Thomas Gleixner

• The report states that, since the 2.6.11 release, the top 10 developers together have contributed 45,338 changes — almost 7.1 percent of the total. The top 30 developers contributed just under 16 percent of the total, as seen in the table below.

• One of these top 30 developers is Thomas Gleixner, CTO at Linutronix GmbH, who serves in various kernel maintainer roles. In this article, Gleixner answers a few questions about his contributions to the Linux kernel.

Linux Foundation

=> ↺ Juniper Flips OpenContrail To The Linux Foundation

• It’s a familiar story arc for open source efforts started by vendors or vendor-led industry consortiums. The initiatives are launched and expanded, but eventually they find their way into independent open source organizations such as the Linux Foundation, where vendor control is lessened, communities are able to grow, and similar projects can cross-pollinate in hopes of driving greater standardization in the industry and adoption within enterprises.

=> ↺ Juniper Hands OpenContrail SDN to Linux Found. Before It’s Too Late

• After failing to develop a community around the project and receiving pushback from a major backer, Juniper may be saving Contrail from becoming irrelevant

=> ↺ CableLabs Announces Two Open Source Projects for NFV

• SNAPS is an overarching program at CableLabs to facilitate the adoption of software-defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV) within the CableLabs’ community. The organization says it spearheaded SNAPS to fill in gaps within open source to ease the adoption of SDN and NFV for its cable members.

=> ↺ Bell becomes first operator to launch ONAP in production

• Canadian telecommunications company Bell announced it has become the first company to launch an open source version of the Open Network Automation Platform (ONAP) in production.

• The announcement was noted by Arpit Joshipura, general manager of networking and orchestration at the Linux Foundation, in a company blog post. According to Joshipura, the news marks a first step toward using ONAP as a common platform across Bell’s network as the company re-aligns itself to follow a multi-partner DevOps model.

Graphics Stack

=> ↺ DXVK Is Making Some Steadfast Progress In Running Direct3D 11 Over Vulkan

• Last month on Phoronix I featured the DXVK project that’s working to implement Direct3D 11 over Vulkan (not to be confused with VK9 as the separate effort to get D3D9 over Vulkan). This project is making a surprising amount of progress in its early stages.

=> ↺ Latest Steam Client Update Rolls Out Shader Pre-Caching For OpenGL/Vulkan

• The latest Steam client release on Wednesday rolls out OpenGL and Vulkan shader pre-caching by default.

=> ↺ VKD3D Is Beginning Flight As Wine’s Direct3D 12 To Vulkan Library

• Back at WineConf 2017 VKD3D was announced for bringing Direct3D 12 to Wine by implementing Microsoft’s latest graphics API atop the Vulkan graphics API. The initial code for this new library is beginning to take shape.

• VKD3D is a long-term play for getting viable Direct3D 12 support working within Wine. As noted back at WineConf, this library is being developed independently of the Wine Git repository. This will potentially allow in the future others to make use of this D3D12-to-Vulkan code without pulling in Wine entirely, should porters look to this project for easing their process of getting Windows games running on Linux, etc.

=> ↺ Wayland’s Weston Sees Patches For FreeBSD, Fractional HiDPI, Rust Bindings

• A new contributor to the Wayland/Weston camp has been working on several improvements to the Weston reference compositor.

• Improvements made to Weston via unmerged patches include adding FreeBSD support to Weston, static linking for backends and gl-renderer, Rust bindings for libweston, and fractional HiDPI scaling support.

=> ↺ LunarG Adds New Size Option To Further Reduce Size Of SPIR-V

=> ↺ Disjoint Timer Query Added To Mesa For Reporting Accurate OpenGL Timing Data

• The latest OpenGL extension added to Mesa by Intel developers is the rather new EXT_disjoint_timer_query.

=> ↺ mesa 17.2.7

• The current queue consists of a variety of fixes, with a sizeable hunk in the shared GLSL codebase.

• Whereas for individual drivers – i965 has a crash fix for when playing various Valve games, r600 and nouveau have tweaks in their compiler backends. Fast clears on radeonsi and RADV are better now, while the VAAPI encoding is playing nicely with GStreamer.

=> ↺ Mesa 17.2.7 Released For Those Not Yet On Mesa 17.3

• Emil Velikov of Collabora has announced the release today of Mesa 17.2.7 as the latest point release for this older stable branch of Mesa.

• If you are a devoted Linux gamer or at all care about the best features and performance, it’s best you migrate to Mesa 17.3 if you are not habitually riding Mesa Git. But for those still using the Mesa 17.2 series from last quarter, the seventh point release is available.

=> ↺ AMD to open-source Vulkan Linux driver ahead of Xmas

=> ↺ AMD open sources its Vulkan

• AMD’s Vulkan Linux driver which was initially going to be closed-source and open-sourced when it was finished, is now totally open sourced.

• AMD has released the source code to its official Vulkan Linux driver, just in time to make the Christmas best sellers’ list.

=> ↺ AMD To Deliver On Its Promise Of An Open Sourced Vulkan Linux Driver Very Soon

• If I had to guess, I’d say AMD really didn’t want to begin yet another year with its open source Vulkan driver still in hiding, so here we are: it’s finally happening. As Phoronix notes, AMD promised the world over two years ago that it would open source its Vulkan driver for Linux, but few probably realized it’d actually take quite this long to see the day. We can be thankful that this driver didn’t just wind up like some Half-Life episode.

Benchmarks

=> ↺ 13-Way Radeon AMDGPU-PRO 17.50 vs. NVIDIA Linux OpenCL Compute Comparison

• Given this week’s release of the big AMDGPU-PRO 17.50 Linux driver update, here are some fresh OpenCL GPU benchmarks comparing the performance of AMD’s latest Radeon graphics cards on this newest Linux driver to that of the latest NVIDIA GeForce GPUs on their respective newest driver.

Applications

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ Ensuring keepalived starts after the network is ready

=> ↺ How to Install WordPress with Let’s Encrypt SSL + W3 Total Cache + CloudFlare CDN on CentOS 7

=> ↺ Notes on dual-booting Linux with BitLocker Device Encryption and Secure Boot

=> ↺ Build a game framework with Python using the Pygame module

=> ↺ How to add a player to your Python game

=> ↺ 14 practical resources for DevOps practitioners

• Are you looking for good reading material to help you implement (or strengthen) DevOps in your organization? DevOps expert Chris Short offers 14 options for your consideration in his All Things Open 2017 Lightning Talk.

• Most of Chris’ recommendations are books, several are websites, and a couple aren’t about DevOps at all. But all of them have something important to teach you about unifying software development and operations to work better, smarter, and faster.

=> ↺ Getting started with a TensorFlow surgery classifier with TensorBoard data viz

=> ↺ Bash Scripting: Learn to use REGEX (Basics)

=> ↺ IPv6 Auto-Configuration in Linux

=> ↺ Easily Upgrade Ubuntu to a Newer Version with This Single Command

• zzupdate is an open source command line utility that makes the task of upgrading Ubuntu Desktop and Server to newer versions a tad bit easier by combining several update commands into one single command.

=> ↺ Turning a CentOS/RHEL 6 or 7 machine into a router

=> ↺ Intro to Sails.js: Creating your first app and hosting it on a Linode server

=> ↺ How to Search PDF Files from the Terminal with pdfgrep

=> ↺ 10 Best Linux Business Apps

• There’s no question that the Linux desktop can be a highly effective workhorse. Note, as proof of this, the greater coverage in the media of the best business apps for Linux. Keep reading for the best Linux business apps – and please add your own favorite in the Comments section below.

=> ↺ Xen Project Contributor Spotlight: Irby Thompson

• The Xen Project is comprised of a diverse set of member companies and contributors that are committed to the growth and success of the Xen Project Hypervisor. The Xen Project Hypervisor is a staple technology for server and cloud vendors, and is gaining traction in the embedded, security and automotive space. This blog series highlights the companies contributing to the changes and growth being made to the Xen Project and how the Xen Project technology bolsters their business.

=> ↺ Xen Hypervisor 4.10 Released With Centriq and ThunderX Support, New Intel Features

• The Xen Project has announced version 4.10 of their open-source hypervisor. Xen 4.10 aims for better security, architectural improvements, better documentation, and more.

=> ↺ Top 5 Linux Music Players

• No matter what you do, chances are you enjoy a bit of music playing in the background. Whether you’re a coder, system administrator, or typical desktop user, enjoying good music might be at the top of your list of things you do on the desktop. And, with the holidays upon us, you might wind up with some gift cards that allow you to purchase some new music. If your music format of choice is of a digital nature (mine happens to be vinyl) and your platform is Linux, you’re going to want a good GUI player to enjoy that music.

• Fortunately, Linux has no lack of digital music players. In fact, there are quite a few, most of which are open source and available for free. Let’s take a look at a few such players, to see which one might suit your needs.

=> ↺ Udeler – A Cross-Platform Udemy Course Video Downloader

• I assume many of our readers are familiar with a number of online study education centers. Some of them focus on programming and computer science related topics alone while others have a wider topic range. Some websites are completely free or paid, and other offer both paid and free courses.

• Just like Khan Academy and Code Academy, Udemy is no newcomer to this domain. It’s a website where you can learn a variety of courses online at your own pace with some of them being available for free.

=> ↺ Thomas – A Simple Pomodoro Timer App for Linux

• One of the best methods you can implement to be more productive is time management. It allows you to keep track of how much time it takes you to get work done and how often you exceed your deadlines.

• Timer apps these days seem to have chosen a favorite technique to help users stay sharp and productive as is evident in apps like Gnome Pomodoro and Take a Break. The Pomodoro technique is a common pick.

=> ↺ Make Ubuntu 17.10 usable – Tutorial

• And that’s about it. Short and sweet and to the point. It’s possible to do myriad other things, but the ideas is to retain some semblance of Ubuntuness in the final product. Overall, Aardvark is a rather underwhelming release, so some changes are truly necessary, then again, push too much, and it will become something else entirely. Like Mint.

• I hope you find this useful. Artful Aardvark does need some love, and it revolves around better looks, extensions fixes, additional software and drivers, suspend tweak, and having the trash icon in the right place. If there are other topics and ideas you’d like me to explore, or follow up with extra pimping, do tell. That’s it for now. Take care.

=> ↺ Protecting code integrity with PGP

=> ↺ Peeking into your Linux packages

=> ↺ A GStreamer Plugin like the Rec Button on your Tape Recorder – A Multi-Threaded Plugin written in Rust

=> ↺ How to find and tar files into a tar ball

=> ↺ How to enable and start services on Alpine Linux

=> ↺ Learn To Use Man Pages Efficiently

=> ↺ How to Install Laravel 5 PHP Framework with Nginx on Ubuntu 16.04

=> ↺ How to Install and Use Encryptpad on Ubuntu 16.04

=> ↺ How to Test Local Websites or Apps on Internet Using Ngrok

Wine or Emulation

=> ↺ Wine Announcement

• The Wine development release 3.0-rc2 is now available.

=> ↺ Wine 3.0-RC2 Released

• Since last week’s code/feature freeze for the upcoming Wine 3.0, the second release candidate is now available.

• Being in the code freeze, only bug fixes are allowed at this stage ahead of the official Wine 3.0.0 stable release expected next month.

=> ↺ Wine 3.0 RC2 is officially available with bug fixes for Fallout 4, Far Cry 2 & 3 and more

• The second release candidate for the big Wine 3.0 release is now officially available and it comes with a bunch of bug fixes.

=> ↺ CrossOver 17 – Run Windows Software and Games on Linux

• Do you want to run some of your top and productive Windows software such as Microsoft Office 2016, Enterprise Architect, including games such as League of Legends, Everquest, WebSite-Watcher Battle on Linux or Mac, then CrossOver 17 is here to help you accomplish just that.

Games

=> ↺ It’s Been Four Years Since SteamOS Began Shipping With Not Much To Show

• It was four years ago this week that Valve began shipping SteamOS, their Debian-based Linux distribution intended for Steam Machines and those wanting a gaming-oriented Linux distribution. While Valve still technically maintains the SteamOS Linux distribution, the outlook at this point is rather bleak.

• For our coverage from four years ago when Valve began shipping SteamOS 1.0 based on Debian Wheezy, see SteamOS Compositor Details, Kernel Patches, Screenshots, Former NVIDIA, Microsoft Developers Doing Lots Of The SteamOS Work, and The First NVIDIA GeForce Benchmarks On The SteamOS Beta.

=> ↺ 7 Best Linux Games of 2017

• We take a look at the best Linux games of 2017, ranging from AAA titles to introspective indie hits.

• So park your gamepad, pop your feet up, and raise a glass of something socially acceptable to what’s been another terrific year for Tux fans with twitchy thumbs!

=> ↺ Finding Paradise Available Now for PC, Mac, and Linux

• Canadian indie game studio Freebird Games has released Finding Paradise, a spiritual successor to the studio’s hit game To the Moon. You can check out the game’s release date trailers below, the first being slightly less of a “serious” trailer:

=> ↺ Colossal Cave Adventure – The Most Famous Classic Text-based Adventure Game

• Colossal Cave Adventure , also known as ADVENT, Colossal Cave, or Adventure, is a most popular text-based adventure game in the period of early 80s and late 90s. This game is also known to be historic first “interactive fiction” game. In 1976, a Programmer named Will Crowther wrote the early version of this game, and later a fellow programmer Don Woods improved the game with many features by adding scoring system, more fantasy characters and locations. This game is originally developed for PDP-10, a good-old giant Mainframe computer. Later, it was ported to normal home desktop computers like IBM PC and Commodore 64. The original game was written using Fortran, and later it was introduced in MS-DOS 1.0 in the early 1980s by Microsoft.

=> ↺ The Linux-powered Ataribox pre-order launch has been ‘officially paused’

• It was only a few days ago, that we reported about the Ataribox pre-order campaign date and it has been delayed already. It’s not surprising, since they had given out so few details about the unit that it became more than a little concerning. It’s even more concerning now that it’s suddenly ‘paused’ before it even began.

=> ↺ Make Sail, a ship-building exploration and adventure game looks like it’s coming to Linux

• Make Sail [Official Site] is a game currently in development that’s inspired by the sailing adventures of Wind Waker and the creativity and construction from Kerbal Space Program and it seems it will come to Linux.

=> ↺ Steam client updated, brings in Shader Pre-Caching for OpenGL and Vulkan

=> ↺ ARK: Survival Evolved works again on Linux, water still broken on some maps

• Good and bad news here. ARK: Survival Evolved [Steam] once again works on Linux, but the water rendering is still totally broken on some maps, so you need to do the fix we showed before.

=> ↺ FPS game ‘Day of Infamy’ has a big update with a new map, new environment art and more

=> ↺ Factorio 0.16 is out with artillery, cliffs, more high-res graphics and more

• Factorio [GOG, Steam, Official Site] 0.16 is a huge release for this fantastic early access game and it comes with a lot of shiny new stuff.

=> ↺ Company of Heroes 2 is currently free on the Humble Store

=> ↺ Exploration flying game ‘InnerSpace’ from Aspyr Media & PolyKnight Games to release January 16th

=> ↺ Sci-fi city builder ‘Surviving Mars’ to release in Spring 2018, more info revealed

=> ↺ Finding Paradise officially released on GOG & Steam with same-day Linux support

• Finding Paradise, the follow-up of To the Moon is now officially available on both GOG and Steam as it released with same-day Linux support. As a reminder, you do not need to have played To the Moon to enjoy it!

=> ↺ Destruction-heavy isometric shooter ‘Brigador: Up-Armored Edition’ adds new missions

=> ↺ HyperBrawl Tournament, an arena based sports combat game should come to Linux

• HyperBrawl Tournament [Steam, Official Site], from Milky Tea Studios is an arena based sports combat game and the developer seems keen to get it on Linux.

=> ↺ Combo-based hunting & puzzle-based cooking game Battle Chef Brigade is now on GOG, some thoughts

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

=> ↺ KDE Applications 17.12 Lands with Dolphin Enhancements, HiDPI Support for Okular

• KDE Applications 17.12 has been in development for the past several months and it’s now available as a drop-in replacement for the previous series of the software suite, KDE Applications 17.08, which reached end of life in early November. As expected, several of the included apps received various enhancements and new features in this release.

• Among these, we can mention that the Dolphin file manager is now capable of saving searches, can limit the search only to folders, makes renaming of files easier by allowing the user to simply double-click on the file name, displays extra information about files like origin URL of downloaded file or modification date, and introduces new Bitrate, Genre, and Release Year columns.

=> ↺ KDE Applications 17.12 Brings HiDPI Improvements, Rest Of KDE Games Ported To KF5

=> ↺ KDE Ships KDE Applications 17.12.0

=> ↺ Kdenlive 17.12.0 released

• We are happy to announce the latest Kdenlive version, part of the KDE Applications 17.12 release, making it the last major release using the current code base. This is a maintenance release focused on stability, while feature development is going in next year’s 18.04 version. Proxy clips were given some attention and should give you better seeking experience as well as reduced memory usage for images. Other fixes include fixes in timeline preview, a crash when using a Library clip and smoother seeking on rewind playback.

=> ↺ KDE Partition Manager 3.3 and future work

• KDE Partition Manager 3.3 is now ready. It includes some improvements for Btrfs, F2FS, NTFS file systems. I even landed the first bits of new LUKS2 on-disk format support, now KDE Partition Manager can display LUKS2 labels. More LUKS2 work will follow in KPM 3.4. There were changes in how LVM devices are detected. So now Calamares installer should be able to see LVM logical volumes. Once my pull request lands, Calamares should also support partitioning operations on LVM logical volumes (although Calamares would need more work before installation and booting from root file system on LVM works). KPMcore library now only depends on Tier 1 Frameworks instead of Tier 3 (although, we will later require Tier 2).

• Most of the work is now done in sfdisk branch. Currently, the only functional KDE Partition Manager backend uses libparted but sfdisk backend is now fully working (I would say RC quality). I would have merged in already but it requires util-linux 2.32 which is not yet released.

=> ↺ KDE Ships KDE Applications 17.12.0

=> ↺ KDE Applications 17.12 Brings HiDPI Improvements, Rest Of KDE Games Ported To KF5

• KDE Applications 17.12 is now available as the newest six-month update to this collection of KDE programs making use of KDE Frameworks 5.

• KDE Applications 17.12 was the cut-off point by which only KF5-programs are permitted while those still making use of KDE4 libraries were forced to be dropped. That cleansing took place and Juk, KImageMapEditor, KMix, KGet, Kolf, Sweeper, and others were among those that saw KF5 ports while some older programs were dropped from the collection — at least until seeing any KF5 port in the future.

=> ↺ Kdenlive Video Editor Issues Final Major Update on Old Codebase

• A new version of open-source video editor Kdenlive is available to download.

• Kdenlive 17.12.0 is something of a bittersweet release as it’s likely to be the final major release using the current Kdenlive codebase.

• Again, like the last few releases, this update is primarily focused on bug fixes and stability. In particular this update solves some niggling issues with proxy clips, with the team highlight ‘smoother seeking‘ and ‘reduced memory usage‘ as a result.

• Those of us you impatient for new features and major improvements will be pleased to hear that work on the next-generation Kdenlive is continuing apace. Kdenlive 18.04 is (as you might guess) tentatively scheduled for formal release in April of 2018.

GNOME Desktop/GTK

=> ↺ Librsvg moves to Gitlab

• Librsvg now lives in GNOME’s Gitlab instance. You can access it here.

• Gitlab allows workflows similar to Github: you can create an account there, fork the librsvg repository, file bug reports, create merge requests… Hopefully this will make it nicer for contributors.

Distributions

=> ↺ The Best Linux Apps & Distros of 2017

• So join us (ideally with from a warm glass of something non-offensive and sweet) as we take a tart look backwards through some key releases from the past 12 months.

• This list is not presented in any sort of order, and all of the entries were sourced from YOUR feedback to the survey we shared earlier in the week. If your favourite release didn’t make the list, it’s because not enough people voted for it!

New Releases

=> ↺ MX-17 released December 15, 2017

• MX-17 final images are now available for download.

OpenSUSE/SUSE

=> ↺ Etisalat Digital to add SUSE open source solutions

• Etisalat Digital is to add Linux and open source solutions to its managed services mix after signing a partnership to on-board SUSE solutions.

=> ↺ OrionVM Broadens Cloud Offering with Open Source Enterprise Support Partner SUSE

• OrionVM, an award-winning next-gen Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) provider, today announced continued growth of the OrionVM Wholesale Cloud Platform with the addition of technology partner SUSE, the world’s first provider of an Enterprise Linux Distribution. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server represents the first open source enterprise supported Linux operating system on the OrionVM platform.

=> ↺ SUSE Rolls Out New Version Of Their In-Kernel Boot Splash Screen

• Back in October I wrote about SUSE working on a new, in-kernel bootsplash project. That work has yet to be mainlined but it looks like it’s still on track for going upstream in the future with the latest version now being released that addresses issues uncovered during review.

• SUSE is developing this in-kernel bootsplash program as an alternative to the user-space Plymouth and other programs. SUSE’s implementation runs off the FBCON frame-buffer console rather than DRM/KMS and they hope with it being in the kernel will prove to be more reliable. This in-kernel bootsplash can also allow hiding all kernel output and other differences compared to user-space implementations.

Red Hat Family

=> ↺ Oracle Pushes Out Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel R4U6

• Oracle has announced the release of their Linux Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 4 Update 6.

• The Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 4 Update 6 kernel is intended for pairing with their RHEL-based Oracle Linux distribution. Oracle’s Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 4 Update 6 is derived from the upstream Linux 4.1.12 kernel.

=> ↺ Introspective Networks Joins Red Hat Business and Technology Partner Programs

• Introspective Networks, a leader in proactive cybersecurity solutions, has joined the Red Hat, Inc. Business Partner Program and Technology Partner Program. This allows both companies to benefit from each other’s technologies and sales channels.

• Introspective Networks has three products, SmokeLib, SmokeSSH and SmokeVPN, listed as certified products for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Red Hat customers now have access to Introspective Networks’ Moving Target Defense and Streaming Encryption solutions. This allows systems to be built that utilize proactive cybersecurity through Introspective Networks’ patented technologies.

=> ↺ ASX Upgrades Its Technical Architecture to Improve Requirements for Business Productivity with JBoss Middleware

=> ↺ Red Hat Releases OpenShift Application Runtimes

• Red Hat has announced the general availability of its OpenShift Application Runtimes. The new release is a collection of cloud-native runtimes for developing Java and JavaScript applications on Red Hat’s packaged distribution of the open source Kubernetes container management and orchestration system.

• The new runtimes will make it possible for organizations to “accelerate cloud-native app development with a curated set of frameworks and runtimes for prescriptively building and running microservices-based applications,” the company said.

=> ↺ Australian Securities Exchange completes Red Hat migration

• The Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) has completed the migration of “mission-critical” legacy applications to the Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform (JBoss EAP).

• ASX first deployed JBoss EAP in 2011 to modernise its legacy technologies and to facilitate the introduction of new web applications after it realised its legacy application server platform was becoming increasingly inconsistent, unstable, and expensive.

• After the initial ASX Online Company migration was complete in 2012, ASX used JBoss EAP to build the ASX.com API, as well as its Sharemarket Game, which gives players the opportunity to learn how the share market works.

=> ↺ Red Hat: 5 focal points for Kubernetes

• Linux runs the containers and manages resources and security. The container runtime manages host-level instantiation and resource assignment (for example Docker or CRI-O). IT departments can use Kubernetes to…

=> ↺ Red Hat offers tips for enterprises ready for serverless architectures

• As serverless architectures continue to emerge in the cloud application space, many have chosen to make the transition in the enterprise realm. And although having the drawback of heavy third-party dependence can be a pain, the benefits of a low-cost and efficient backend can be incredibly important for developers to scale out their platforms.

• We talked with an expert in the field of serverless technology, Rich Sharples, ‎senior director, product management at Red Hat.

=> ↺ Red Hat Gets New Common Criteria Certification for Operating System; Paul Smith Comments

Finance

=> ↺ SodaStream International, Mattel, AppFolio, Red Hat and Adobe Systems as Zacks Bull and Bear of the Day

=> ↺ Investors must not feel shy to buy these stocks: Select Medical Holdings Corporation (SEM), Red Hat, Inc. (RHT)

=> ↺ Shooting From The Hip: Quant Update on Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE:RHT) as Price Index Touches 1.42251

=> ↺ Few Things investors Didn’t Know About: Red Hat, Inc. (RHT), American Electric Power Company, Inc. (AEP)

=> ↺ Active Stock on Watch: Red Hat Inc (RHT) Runs 1.77

=> ↺ First Republic Investment Management Inc. Buys 2,746 Shares of Red Hat Inc (RHT)

=> ↺ Choosing Between Fortinet, Inc. (FTNT) and Red Hat, Inc. (RHT)

=> ↺ A Few Clear Signs For NovaGold Resources Inc. (NG), Red Hat, Inc. (RHT)

Fedora

=> ↺ What’s New in Fedora 27 Workstations

• Fedora 27 Workstation is the latest release of Fedora Linux Distribution. This release features latest GNOME 3.26 as default desktop environment which offers new features like revamped Settings, color emoji support, and the ability for the system search to display more results at once.

• Fedora 27 powered by linux kernel 4.13 series, which means that it offers support for the latest hardware components available on the market. Also comes with the latest version of the Fedora Media Writer utility, which lets users create bootable SD cards with Fedora Linux that they can use for running the operating system on various ARM devices like the Raspberry Pi. It also supports Windows 7 and improves screenshot handling.

Debian Family

=> ↺ Debian 9 Complete Screenshot Tour

• The world’s most stable upstream Linux distro has just announced a point upgrade on its latest Debian 9 Stretch release. The latest version is 9.3, it comes with many corrections and improvements on the security front as well as some adjustments to cater for some other serious issues. The point release is not a new version of Debian 9 but only updates are added, so users do not need to throw away the old installation media as users can easily upgrade to an up-to-date system using an updated mirror.

=> ↺ Debsources now in sources.debian.org

• Debsources is a web application for publishing, browsing and searching an unpacked Debian source mirror on the Web. With Debsources, all the source code of every Debian release is available in https://sources.debian.org, both via an HTML user interface and a JSON API.

• This service was first offered in 2013 with the sources.debian.net instance, which was kindly hosted by IRILL, and is now becoming official under sources.debian.org, hosted on the Debian infrastructure.

Derivatives

=> ↺ Debian-Based Q4OS Linux Distro to Get a New Look with Debonaire Desktop Theme

• Q4OS is a small GNU/Linux distribution based on the latest Debian GNU/Linux operating system and built around the Trinity Desktop Environment (TDE). It’s explicitly designed to make the Microsoft Windows to Linux transition accessible and more straightforward as possible for anyone.

• Dubbed Debonaire, the new desktop theme uses dark-ish elements for the window titlebar and panel. Somehow it resembles the look and feels of the acclaimed Arc GTK+ theme, and it makes the Q4OS operating system more modern than the standard look offered by the Trinity Desktop Environment.

=> ↺ Slax 9.3.0 beta ready for download

• I am almost ready to release the next Slax version. But before I do so, I would like to get some feedback on the current progress.

Canonical/Ubuntu

=> ↺ Mir 0.29.0 release

• We are pleased to announce that Mir 0.29.0 has been released and is available in Mir release PPA. There are builds for the supported Ubuntu releases (16.04 LTS “Xenial”, 17.04 “Zesty” and 17.10 “Artful”) .

• Mir 0.29.0 is in the process of uploading into Ubuntu 18.04 “Bionic” (it should move out of “proposed” and into the main archive in about a week). If you need it sooner then a “Bionic” build is also available in the Mir release PPA.

=> ↺ Mir 0.29 Released To Improve Their Wayland Implementation

• The past few days Canonical’s Mir developers have been preparing their next milestone with pushing this display server along with Wayland protocol support and now that new “v0.29″ release is available.

Flavours and Variants

=> ↺ Linux Mint 18.3 “Sylvia” KDE released!

• Linux Mint 18.3 is a long term support release which will be supported until 2021. It comes with updated software and brings refinements and many new features to make your desktop even more comfortable to use.

=> ↺ Linux Mint 18.3 “Sylvia” Xfce released!

• Linux Mint 18.3 is a long term support release which will be supported until 2021. It comes with updated software and brings refinements and many new features to make your desktop even more comfortable to use.

=> ↺ Linux Mint 18.3 Cinnamon Review: Best ‘Linux’ Distro for Beginners!

• Linux Mint 18.3 Cinnamon boots fast (even on a slow rotational disk), very stable (I haven’t seen any application crash in the past 3 days that I’ve been using it) and the level of responsiveness it has shown is top-notch, probably matched only by another Linux Mint! As far as the end user-experience is concerned, I’d say it’s the best ‘Linux’ distro for beginners, it certainly knows how to please the end-user… welcome to the HecticGeek‘s review of Linux Mint 18.3 Cinnamon edition.

• Few years ago Linux Mint changed their release strategy. They now rely on the core of Ubuntu LTS releases as the foundation for their operating system. As far as I can see, this is working great for them. Because Ubuntu LTS (Long Term Support) provides security & maintenance updates up to 5 years & it is already based on a solid foundation set by Ubuntu. This in tern gives Linux Mint developers enough space to ‘breath’ a little and fully concentrate on what they do best: development of their awesome desktop shell & other native Linux Mint user-applications.

=> ↺ Linux Mint 18.3 ‘Sylvia’ Boasts Updated Software Manager, Backup Tools

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ Ataribox preorders and crowdfunding campaign open on December 14

• Atari will start taking preorders for its Ataribox game console starting December 14. The New York company will also start its crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo at that time.

• In an email blast, Atari said, “We at Atari are thrilled to introduce you to our first new gaming hardware in over 20 years. Welcome to Ataribox. Preorders will officially open on December 14, 2017. Our community is the absolute backbone of Atari, and we’d like to offer our earliest supporters a chance to grab Ataribox at an exclusive discount. Keep an eye on that inbox for your chance to order yours.”

=> ↺ Low-cost embeddable SDR occupies a mini-PCIe card

• The Fairwaves “XTRX” mini-PCIe SDR card is a low-cost embeddable SDR card aimed at high data rate apps including 4G/5G and “massive” MIMO.

• Fairwaves Inc.’s “XTRX” SDR mini-PCIe card, which launched on Nov. 30 at Crowd Supply, has earned more than 80 percent of its funding goal with one month remaining. The company claims the full sized mini-PCIe XTRX card (30 x 51mm) is the smallest commercially available SDR card. For comparison, the USB-interfaced LimeSDR Mini and RTL-SDR boards measure 69 x 31.4mm and 40 x 60mm, respectively.

=> ↺ Tiny quad-core Linux SBCs slim down and get an RPi-like carrier

• FriendlyElec has unveiled COM-like variants of its tiny, low-cost quad-core, Allwinner H3- and H5-based NanoPi Neo and Neo2 SBCs, plus an RPi style carrier.

• FriendlyElec’s new $8 “NanoPi Neo Core” and $25 “NanoPi Neo Core2” boards are low-profile variants of the company’s earlier 40 x 40mm NanoPi Neo and NanoPi Neo 2 SBCs, but with their large, topside USB and Ethernet connectors replaced by a third dual-row pin header. As a result, the new boards are more like computer-on-modules (COMs) than single-board computers (SBCs), in that they’re meant to be combined with off-the-shelf or custom carrier boards, such as FriendlyElec’s RPi 3-like Mini Shield (see farther below).

• [...]

• Operating system — Ubuntu Core; Armbian; U-boot bootloader

=> ↺ You Can Pre-Order Ataribox Very Soon, But The Thing Is Still Sort Of A Mystery

=> ↺ Ataribox Pre-Order Plan “Officially Paused”

• If you were hoping that today would be the day you’d get to throw $300 at your screen and snag a Linux-powered Ataribox games console …Well, we’ve some bad news.

• You may be aware that the Ataribox team said pre-orders for the Atari-branded games machine would go live today, December 14th.

Tizen

=> ↺ Which one is for you? Compare Gear S3, Gear Sport or Gear Fit2 Pro

=> ↺ Sling TV now available on 2017 models of Samsung Smart TVs

=> ↺ Give your Gear S3 and Gear Sport a Christmas makeover with these FREE watchfaces

Android

=> ↺ I Built an Android App, and I Don’t Even Code

• For someone like me, who doesn’t write code for a living, creating even the simplest Android app can be a daunting proposition. Although I can cobble together an occasional PHP or Bash script, I’m completely out of my depth when it comes to developing anything meaningful. So building my own Android app has always been more of a pipe dream for me—until I stumbled upon Jasonette. In simple terms, Jasonette makes it possible to create a full-featured Android app using nothing but a JSON file. This still requires some basic coding skills, but putting together a JSON file is much more realistic than wrangling with Java or Kotlin code.

• Jasonette comes with excellent documentation that makes it easy to learn the ropes. So it took me only a couple of weekends to master Jasonette’s basics and put together my first Android app. And I thought I’d share with you the fruits of my coding labor — the Tōkyō Taxi Lights app.

=> ↺ OnePlus 5 Now Receiving OxygenOS 4.5.15 Update With October Android Security Patch and Bug Fixes

=> ↺ Android Wear Oreo update tracker (Update: Now rolling out to four more watches)

=> ↺ Comment: Upcoming ‘Top 5′ Android smartphone with in-screen fingerprint sensor is too little, too late

=> ↺ Samsung Galaxy S8 Oreo update: Top features + what’s new!

=> ↺ Best of Android 2017: Which phone performs best?

=> ↺ Google Assistant is coming to older Android phones and tablets

=> ↺ More Android Wear devices are now getting Oreo

=> ↺ Opinion: Android is a Mess, But the Solution is Simpler Than You Think

=> ↺ How to Install the Android 8.0 Oreo Beta on Your Galaxy Note 8

=> ↺ Chrome For Android Adds Parallel Download Capability

=> ↺ How to set up Android Wear

=> ↺ After all this time, millions of Android phones are finally getting Google Assistant

=> ↺ Best of Android 2017 – Which phone has the longest battery life?

=> ↺ Google Assistant comes to older Android phones running 5.0 and up

=> ↺ 20 Android tips and tricks you shouldn’t miss from 2017

=> ↺ Huawei Mate9

• Generally this is a decent phone. As a replacement for a failed Nexus 6P it’s pretty good. But at this time I tend to recommend not buying it as the first generation of Pixel phones are now cheap enough to compete. If the Pixel XL is out of your price range then instead of saving $130 for a less secure phone it would be better to save $400 and choose one of the many cheaper phones on offer.

Free Software/Open Source

=> ↺ 6 open source home automation tools

• The Internet of Things isn’t just a buzzword, it’s a reality that’s expanded rapidly since we last published a review article on home automation tools in 2016. In 2017, 26.5% of U.S. households already had some type of smart home technology in use; within five years that percentage is expected to double.

• With an ever-expanding number of devices available to help you automate, protect, and monitor your home, it has never been easier nor more tempting to try your hand at home automation. Whether you’re looking to control your HVAC system remotely, integrate a home theater, protect your home from theft, fire, or other threats, reduce your energy usage, or just control a few lights, there are countless devices available at your disposal.

=> ↺ New Open Source Tools Test for VPN Leaks

• ExpressVPN on Tuesday launched a suite of open source tools that let users test for vulnerabilities that can compromise privacy and security in virtual private networks.

• Released under an open source MIT License, they are the first-ever public tools to allow automated testing for leaks on VPNs, the company said. The tools are written primarily in Python, and available for download on Github.

=> ↺ Open Source OS Still supporting 32-bit Architecture and Why it’s Important

• One after the other, Linux distributions are dropping 32-bit support. Or, to be accurate, they drop support for the Intel x86 32-bit architecture (IA-32). Indeed, computers based on x86_64 hardware (IA-64) are superior in every way to their 32-bits counterpart: they are more powerful, run faster, are more compact, and more energy efficient. Not mentioning their price has considerably decreased in just a few years.

• If you have the opportunity to switch to 64 bits, do it. But, to quote a mail I received recently from Peter Tribble, author of Tribblix: “[… ] in the developed world we assume that we can replace things; in some parts of the developing world older IA-32 systems are still the norm, with 64-bit being rare.”

=> ↺ An introduction to Joplin, an open source Evernote alternative

• Joplin is an open source cross-platform note-taking and to-do application. It can handle a large number of notes, organized into notebooks, and can synchronize them across multiple devices. The notes can be edited in Markdown, either from within the app or with your own text editor, and each application has an option to render Markdown with formatting, images, URLs, and more. Any number of files, such as images and PDFs, can be attached to a note, and notes can also be tagged.

• I started developing Joplin when Evernote changed its pricing model and because I wanted my 4,000+ notes to be stored in a more open format, free of any proprietary solution. To that end, I have developed three Joplin applications, all under the MIT License: for desktop (Windows, MacOS, and Linux), for mobile (Android and iOS), and for the terminal (Windows, MacOS, and Linux). All the applications have similar user interfaces and can synchronize with each other. They are based on open standards and technologies including SQLite and JavaScript for the backend, and Terminal Kit (Node.js), Electron, and React Native for the three front ends.

=> ↺ Startup Aims to Build Open-Source Telecom Ecosystem on Blockchain

• There are 2,000+ mobile network operations in charge of providing communication services at global scale. However, the traditional infrastructure is centralized, inflexible and inaccurate. Common services like 3G/4G, Wi-Fi, BOSS mobile communications solutions and companies that use cloud-based communications solutions are often unable to render accurate content billing and distribution.

• Conventional mobile packages overcharge customers, not to mention that they pose concerns around data transmissions. An alternative solution to average mobile network providers could be Blockchain technology.

=> ↺ Merry Xmas, fellow code nerds: Avast open-sources decompiler

• Malware hunting biz and nautical jargon Avast has released its machine-code decompiler RetDec as open source, in the hope of arming like-minded haters of bad bytes and other technically inclined sorts with better analytical tools.

• As discussed as the recent Botconf 2017 in France earlier this month, RetDec provides a way to turn machine code – binary executables – back into an approximation of the original source code.

=> ↺ 10 open source predictions for 2018

• With 2017 just about done and dusted, dozens of open source experts have polished their crystal balls and made predictions about what can be expected in the open source space in 2018.

• Now it’s our turn. (With fingers firmly crossed) here are 10 open source trends that you may – or may not – see coming to the fore next year. Some are obvious, some are frivolous, and some could just change your life.

=> ↺ Stop Calling Everything “Open Source”: What “Open Source” Really Means

• “Open source” is an exciting concept in the world of software and beyond. But it shouldn’t be applied to contexts where it makes no sense.

=> ↺ GreenKey to join Symphony; open source voice software

• GreenKey, creator of patented voice software with integrated speech recognition designed for the financial markets, today announced the firm has joined the Symphony Software Foundation, a nonprofit organization fostering innovation in financial services through open source software (OSS).

=> ↺ GreenKey Joins the Symphony Software Foundation; Will Open Source Voice Software

• GreenKey, creator of patented voice software with integrated speech recognition designed for the financial markets, today announced the firm has joined the Symphony Software Foundation, a nonprofit organization fostering innovation in financial services through open source software (OSS). GreenKey will release a Community Edition of its voice software development kit (SDK) that will enable banks and other financial market firms to “voice enable” any web application.

Events

=> ↺ Ubucon Europe 2018 Ubuntu Conference Announced for 27-29 April in Xixón, Spain

• The organizers of the Ubucon Europe conference for Ubuntu Linux users, contributors and developers announced the official dates next year’s Ubucon Europe 2018 event.

• Don’t pack your bags just yet for the next Ubuntu conference, but at least you should mark your calendars for April 27, 28, and 29 of 2018, when the Ubucon Europe 2018 conference will take place. Where? The event will be held in Spain this time, in the city of Xixón, at the municipal facilities of Centro de Cultura Antiguo Instituto.

• “Ubucon Europe 2018 will be held this year in Xixón, Spain on 27, 28 and 29 April 2018 in the Spanish city of Xixón at the municipal facilities of the Antiguo Instituto. For further information please write to ubuconeurope2018 AT gmail.com,” wrote the organizers in a tweet earlier this morning.

Web Browsers

Chrome

=> ↺ Chrome 64 Beta: stronger pop-up blocker, Resize Observer, and import.meta

=> ↺ Chrome 64 Beta Brings Stronger Pop-Up Blocker, JavaScript Improvements

• Ahead of the holidays Google has pushed out the Chrome 64 beta to all supported platforms.

Mozilla

=> ↺ Firefox Focus Adds Quick Access Without Sacrificing Users’ Privacy

• It’s been a little over a year since we launched Firefox Focus. We’ve had tremendous success since then, we launched in 27+ languages, launched on Android, and hit over 1 million downloads on Android within the first month of launch.

• Today, we’re introducing a new feature: quicker access to your most visited sites, as well as the ability to add any search engine to your Focus app. They were the most requested items from our users and are aligned with our goals on what makes Focus so great.

• We know our users want choice and miss the convenience of having their favorite websites and search engines at their fingertips, but they don’t want to sacrifice their privacy. Since the moment we’ve built Focus, our goal has been to get our users quickly to the information and sites all while keeping their data safe from unwanted targeting.

SaaS/Back End

=> ↺ The Apache Software Foundation Announces Apache® Hadoop® v3.0.0 General Availability

• The Apache Software Foundation (ASF), the all-volunteer developers, stewards, and incubators of more than 350 Open Source projects and initiatives, today announced Apache® Hadoop® v3.0.0, the latest version of the Open Source software framework for reliable, scalable, distributed computing.

Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

=> ↺ Elementary LibreOffice

• Two months ago I start to finalize the existing Elementary icon theme for LibreOffice. It’s about 2.000 icons and now they are available in LibreOffice 6.0 beta. In addition all icons are available as svg file so it can be used and edit in an easy way.

Pseudo-Open Source (Openwashing)

=> ↺ LinkedIn open sources website troubleshooting tools

• LinkedIn announced the open-sourcing of two tools for investigating broken hosts and services, among other website navigation issues. Fossor (Latin for gravedigger) is a Python tool and library that automates multiple investigative checks in parallel, while Ascii Etch, another Python library, outputs information gleaned from Fossor in ascii-character graphs.

=> ↺ A step-by-step guide to building open culture

=> ↺ Introducing the Open Organization Workbook

=> ↺ An Open-Source Consensus-Based Approach To Value Assessment

BSD

=> ↺ FreeNAS 11.1 Provides Greater Performance and Cloud Integration

• The FreeNAS Development Team is excited and proud to present FreeNAS 11.1! FreeNAS 11.1 adds cloud integration, OpenZFS performance improvements, including the ability to prioritize resilvering operations, and preliminary Docker support to the world’s most popular software-defined storage operating system. This release includes an updated preview of the beta version of the new administrator graphical user interface, including the ability to select display themes. This post provides a brief overview of the new features.

• The base operating system has been updated to the STABLE version of FreeBSD 11.1, which adds new features, updated drivers, and the latest security fixes. Support for Intel® Xeon® Scalable Family processors, AMD Ryzen processors, and HBA 9400-91 has been added.

=> ↺ FreeNAS 11.1 Rolls Out With Better OpenZFS Performance, Docker Support

=> ↺ FreeBSD-Based TrueOS 17.12 Released

• The FreeBSD-based operating system TrueOS that’s formerly known as PC-BSD has put out their last stable update of 2017.

• TrueOS 17.12 is now available as the latest six-month stable update for this desktop-focused FreeBSD distribution that also offers a server flavor. TrueOS continues using OpenRC as its init system and this cycle they have continued improving their Qt5-based Lumina desktop environment, the Bhyve hypervisor is now supported in the TrueOS server install, improved removable device support, and more.

Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

=> ↺ Open source science: Scientists researching rice plant genetics agree to not file for patents

• The Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR), a nonprofit established in the 2014 Farm Bill with bipartisan congressional support, awarded a $1 million Seeding Solutions grant to University of California, Davis (UC Davis) to study the genetics of rice plants. Together with researchers at the University of North Carolina and collaborators, the team will develop and implement a chemistry-driven gene discovery approach to identify genes that modulate root traits.

=> ↺ Lytro could open source their light-field photo sharing platform

=> ↺ Lytro considering open source light field photo sharing platform

• Lytro is reportedly considering an open source solution after announcing it would no longer support its sharing platform for Lytro cameras’ ‘living images.’

Open Data

=> ↺ When Waze Won’t Help, Palestinians Make Their Own Maps

• If you want to drive the 15 or so miles from Jerusalem to the city of Jericho, in the Palestinian Territories, Google Maps will tell you: “Can’t find a way there.” Waze will issue a warning: “Caution: This destination is in a high risk area or is prohibited to Israelis by law.” If you press “Confirm Drive” nonetheless, the app will direct you, just not all the way.

• When you pass from Israel into the West Bank, part of the occupied Palestinian Territories, Waze’s directions simply end. To keep going, you need to change your setting to allow access to “high risk” areas. Even then, GPS coverage tends to be limited.

Open Hardware/Modding

=> ↺ Using Gmail with OAUTH2 in Linux and on an ESP8266

• One of the tasks I dread is configuring a web server to send email correctly via Gmail. The simplest way of sending emails is SMTP, and there are a number of scripts out there that provide a simple method to send mail that way with a minimum of configuration. There’s even PHP mail(), although it’s less than reliable.

Programming/Development

=> ↺ Diagnose and understand your app’s GPU behavior with GAPID

=> ↺ GAPID 1.0 Released As Google’s Cross-Platform Vulkan Debugger

• Back in March we wrote about GAPID as a new Google-developed Vulkan debugger in its early stages. Fast forward to today, GAPID 1.0 has been released for debugging Vulkan apps/games on Linux/Windows/Android as well as OpenGL ES on Android.

• GAPID is short for the Graphics API Debugger and allows for analyzing rendering and performance issues with ease using its GUI interface. GAPID also allows for easily experimenting with code changes to see their rendering impact and allows for offline debugging. GAPID has its own format and capturetrace utility for capturing traces of Vulkan (or GLES on Android too) programs for replaying later on with GAPID.

=> ↺ Hackable Text Editor Atom 1.23 Adds Better Compatibility for External Git Tools

• GitHub released Atom 1.23, the monthly update of the open-source and cross-platform hackable text editor application loved by numerous developers all over the world.

• Including a month’s worth of enhancements, Atom 1.23 comes with the ability for packages to register URI handler functions, which can be invoked whenever the user visits a URI that starts with “atom://package-name/,” and a new option to hide certain commands in the command palette when registering them via “atom.commands.add.”

• Atom 1.23 also improves the compatibility with external Git tools, as well as the performance of the editor by modifying the behavior of several APIs to no longer make callbacks more than once in a text buffer transaction. Along with Atom 1.23, GitHub also released Teletype 0.4.0, a tool that allows developers to collaborate simultaneously on multiple files.

=> ↺ #13: (Much) Faster Package (Re-)Installation via Binaries

=> ↺ RVowpalWabbit 0.0.10

=> ↺ Simplicity Before Generality, Use Before Reuse

• A common problem in component frameworks, class libraries, foundation services, and other infrastructure code is that many are designed to be general purpose without reference to concrete applications. This leads to a dizzying array of options and possibilities that are often unused or misused — or just not useful.

• Generally, developers work on specific systems; specifically, the quest for unbounded generality rarely serves them well (if at all). The best route to generality is through understanding known, specific examples, focusing on their essence to find an essential common solution. Simplicity through experience rather than generality through guesswork.

=> ↺ What Ruby Needs

• Of all of the questions we receive at RedMonk, one of the most common concerns programming languages. Whether from members of a given community or a commercial entity, the desire is to better understand a given language’s trajectory and the context around it. Is it going up or down, and what are the reasons for that direction? And, of course: can that direction be meaningfully changed?

• Recently, we’ve received several such inquiries around Ruby. For those with an interest in the language, then, the following is a quick public summary of the answers we’ve been providing privately.

Standards/Consortia

=> ↺ HTML 5.2 is done, HTML 5.3 is coming

• Today W3C releases HTML 5.2. This is the second revision of HTML5, following last year’s HTML 5.1 Recommendation. In 2014 we expressed a goal to produce a revision roughly every year; HTML 5.2 is a continuation of that commitment.

• This Recommendation like its predecessor provides an updated stable guide to what is HTML. In the past year there has been a significant cleanup of the specification. We have introduced some new features, and removed things that are no longer part of the modern Web Platform, or that never achieved broad interoperability. As always we have also fixed bugs in the specification, making sure it adapts to the changing reality of the Web.

• Many of the features added integrate other work done in W3C. The Payment Request API promises to make commerce on the Web far easier, reducing the risks of making a mistake or being caught by an unscrupulous operator. New security features such as Content Security Policy protect users more effectively, while new work incorporated from ARIA helps developers offer people with disabilities a good user experience of their applications.

Leftovers

Health/Nutrition

=> ↺ Greg Perry Resigns As Director Of Medicines Patent Pool

• After nearly five years as the executive director of the Medicines Patent Pool, Greg Perry has stepped down with little notice. [Update: the next day, it was announced that he has joined the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA) in Geneva.]

• The announcement came just a day after the Medicines Patent Pool announced an expansion of its signature patent database and presented its work to the patent law committee of the World Intellectual Property Organization.

=> ↺ Former Medicines Patent Pool Head Greg Perry Joins Pharmaceutical Industry

• A day after Greg Perry resigned as executive director of the Medicines Patent Pool, the pharmaceutical industry announced today that he will join the Geneva-based International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA) as an assistant director general.

=> ↺ London Declaration Report Shows Progress But More Needed Against Neglected Tropical Diseases

Security

=> ↺ European Commission Kicks Off Open-Source Bug Bounty

• The European Commission has announced its first-ever bug bounty program, and is calling on hackers to find vulnerabilities in VLC, a popular open-source multimedia player loaded on every workstation at the Commission.

• The program has kicked off with a three-week, invitation-only session, after which it will be open to the public. Rewards include a minimum of $2,000 for critical severity bugs, especially remote code execution.

• High severity bugs such as code execution without user intervention, will start at $750. Medium severity bugs will start at a minimum of $300; these include code execution with user intervention, high-impact crashes and infinite loops. Low-severity bugs, like information leaks, crashes and the like, will pay out starting at $100.

=> ↺ Avast launches open-source decompiler for machine code

• Keeping up with the latest malware and virus threats is a daunting task, even for industry professionals. Any device connected to the Internet is a target for being infected and abused. In order to stop attacks from happening, there needs to be an understanding of how they work so that a prevention method can be developed.

• To help with the reverse engineering of malware, Avast has released an open-source version of its machine-code decompiler, RetDec, that has been under development for over seven years. RetDec supports a variety of architectures aside from those used on traditional desktops including ARM, PIC32, PowerPC and MIPS.

=> ↺ Avast makes ‘RetDec’ machine-code decompiler open source on GitHub

• Today, popular anti-virus and security company, Avast, announces that it too is contributing to the open source community. You see, it is releasing the code for its machine-code decompiler on GitHub. Called “RetDec,” the decompiler had been under development since 2011, originally by AVG — a company Avast bought in 2016.

=> ↺ The Intel ME vulnerabilities are a big deal for some people, harmless for most

• (Note: all discussion here is based on publicly disclosed information, and I am not speaking on behalf of my employers)

• I wrote about the potential impact of the most recent Intel ME vulnerabilities a couple of weeks ago. The details of the vulnerability were released last week, and it’s not absolutely the worst case scenario but it’s still pretty bad. The short version is that one of the (signed) pieces of early bringup code for the ME reads an unsigned file from flash and parses it. Providing a malformed file could result in a buffer overflow, and a moderately complicated exploit chain could be built that allowed the ME’s exploit mitigation features to be bypassed, resulting in arbitrary code execution on the ME.

• Getting this file into flash in the first place is the difficult bit. The ME region shouldn’t be writable at OS runtime, so the most practical way for an attacker to achieve this is to physically disassemble the machine and directly reprogram it. The AMT management interface may provide a vector for a remote attacker to achieve this – for this to be possible, AMT must be enabled and provisioned and the attacker must have valid credentials[1]. Most systems don’t have provisioned AMT, so most users don’t have to worry about this.

=> ↺ Security updates for Thursday

=> ↺ NIST Releases New Cybersecurity Framework Draft

=> ↺ Researchers Create Chips That Are Unhackable and Virtually Indestructible

• Keeping critical information like your online banking login or credit card number out of the wrong hands is a crucial but difficult part of living in the age of the Internet. Installing antivirus software or using password lockboxes are probably security precautions that you’ve taken to keep yourself from becoming a cybercrime statistic. But organizations like the military have access to such sensitive information that these standard precautions just aren’t enough.

=> ↺ Starbucks Free WiFi ‘Caught Sucking Cryptocoins’ Off The Laptops Of Coffee Addicts

• Dunkin noticed a strange 10-second delay his laptop took while connecting to the WiFi. He later found a cryptocurrency mining code on his laptop.

• He was quick to bring the issue to the coffee brand’s attention via Twitter where Dunking also included a screenshot of the code he found.

=> ↺ Introducing bolt: Thunderbolt 3 security levels for GNU/Linux

• Today I released the first version 0.1 (aka “Accidentally Working”) of bolt, a system daemon that manages Thunderbolt 3 devices. It provides a D-Bus API to list devices, enroll them (authorize and store them in the local database) and forget them again (remove previously enrolled devices). It also emits signals if new devices are connected (or removed). During enrollment devices can be set to be automatically authorized as soon as they are connected. A command line tool, called boltctl, can be used to control the daemon and perform all the above mentioned tasks (see the man page of boltctl(1) for details).

=> ↺ Red Hat’s Latest Project: “Bolt” To Deal With Linux Thunderbolt Security

• “Bolt” is a new project by Red Hat / GNOME developers in dealing with Thunderbolt 3 security levels on Linux.

• With Thunderbolt allowing unfettered access to PCI Express, it’s super fast but opens up the plug-and-play port to DMA attacks and more. Thus with Thunderbolt 3 they introduced the concept of security levels, which Bolt is part of the equation for supporting this security feature on Linux.

=> ↺ Bolt Will Tackle Thunderbolt 3 Security on Linux

• Ah, you gotta love Red Hat — they’re never not busy working on something that might make our lives a little easier.

• Latest case in point: Thunderbolt 3.

• This alternative to USB and other peripheral port technologies (including the older Thunderbolt 2) is fast gaining traction in the tech industry (especially since Intel made it royalty free).

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ Lavishing Money on the Pentagon

• It seems like it’s always Christmastime at the Pentagon where the stockings are full and budget-cutting is for those domestic social-program guys, as Jonathan Marshall explains.

• [...]

• President Trump this week signed into law a $700 billion blueprint for military spending in the current fiscal year. The 2018 National Defense Authorization Act includes funding for more troops, more weapons, more interventions abroad, and more active wars, with Trump’s enthusiastic blessing. “We need our military,” he declared at a White House signing ceremony.

Transparency/Investigative Reporting

=> ↺ WikiLeaks recognised as a ‘media organisation’ by UK tribunal

• A British tribunal has recognised Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks as a “media organisation”, a point of contention with the United States, which is seeking to prosecute him and disputes his journalistic credentials.

• The issue of whether Assange is a journalist and publisher would almost certainly be one of the main battlegrounds in the event of the US seeking his extradition from the UK.

• The definition of WikiLeaks by the information tribunal, which is roughly equivalent to a court, could help Assange’s defence against extradition on press freedom grounds.

Finance

=> ↺ Theresa May suffers fresh humiliation as she loses key Brexit vote in Commons

• Theresa May was dealt her humiliating first Commons defeat over Brexit tonight.

• MPs whooped and applauded as she lost a crunch vote by 309 to 305, a majority of just four, to give MPs a “meaningful vote” on her final deal with Brussels.

• It is a blow to the Prime Minister as she jets to Brussels tomorrow to meet 27 EU leaders.

• They are set to sign off the first-round deal she struck with the EU Commission on citizens’ rights, Northern Ireland and the divorce bill on Friday.

=> ↺ Russia or Corporate Tax Cuts: Which Would Comcast Rather MSNBC Cover?

• At the beginning of December, liberal TV hosts Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow—the anchors of MSNBC‘s primetime schedule—were confronted with ever-escalating breaking news. In the span of a week, from December 1 through December 7, President Donald Trump shrank two national monuments, recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, saw his travel ban upheld by the Supreme Court and possibly began to create his own spy network. Meanwhile, the Senate passed a tax “reform” bill that would radically restructure the US economy at the expense of poor and middle-class Americans, and climate change-fueled wildfires devastated Southern California.

• Yet on the days their shows aired during those seven days—the weekdays, December 1 and 4–7—both Hayes and Maddow bypassed all these stories to lead with minutiae from the ongoing Russia investigation that has consumed MSNBC‘s coverage like no other news event since the beginning of the Trump presidency. Topical news of the day, whether on legislation or natural disasters, took a backseat. The Comcast-owned network’s two most popular personalities used their position to focus endlessly on speculative coverage of Russia’s role in the 2016 election—devoting the bulk of each show’s 15-minutes opening segment to the story, at a minimum.

=> ↺ As Brexit dominates, its causes are being forgotten

• The Prime Minister seemed to recognise the need for urgent action last year when she announced from the steps of Downing Street her intention to tackle “burning injustice”. But look a bit closer at her language on that day, and you may spot the seeds of failure. “We will do everything we can to help anybody, whatever your background, to go as far as your talents will take you,” she said. The emphasis was on “your talents” – implying that those who do not have whatever the passing whims of the modern economy deems ‘talent’ can “go whistle”, to adopt a phrase.

• [...]

• In a country which still has significant wealth, where people’s living standards are declining, and where our record on tackling poverty is at risk of unravelling, not making the most of the resources we already have looks increasingly perverse.

=> ↺ A Border Wall’s Uncompensated Victims

• One day several years ago, a crew of federal contractors turned up behind Melissa Solis’ family home, a modest house with white siding surrounded by fruit trees and farmland a few hundred yards from the Rio Grande. The workers cleared brush. They dug a deep trench. A pile driver sank steel deep into the ground.

• The work was disruptive, the noise a constant distraction for Solis and her parents. Snakes and cockroaches streamed inside to flee the construction. The foundation shifted, knocking doors askew. When it was over, the Department of Homeland Security had erected an 18-foot-high metal fence behind the house — a border barrier to stop people from illegally crossing the river from Mexico into the United States.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ NYT Prints Government-Funded Propaganda About Government-Funded Propaganda

=> ↺ What’s at Stake in Honduran Election

• For seven months in 1969, I hitch-hiked around the U.S., Mexico and Central America with my best friend from high school. Some class-mates from our school in Vancouver Canada saved their money then travelled to Europe or Australia but Ollie and I headed south. It was an eye-opening experience for two middle-class Canadians.

=> ↺ Alabama’s Effort to Suppress Black Vote Couldn’t Prevent Huge Turnout

• Some 1.3 million Alabamians – more than twice as many who voted in the primary – turned out to vote in Tuesday’s special election to fill the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The turnout was extraordinary because it took place in a state that has a well-documented history of trying to suppress the vote of the very group that helped propel Doug Jones to victory.

• Alabama has a long record of suppressing the African-American vote. In the Jim Crow era, state authorities made it impossible for many Blacks to vote by requiring a literacy test. Courts long ago deemed literacy tests discriminatory and illegal, but today we still see barriers in Alabama that make it harder for people of color to cast a ballot.

=> ↺ Lobbying Registration Database Reporting Recipe

• It can seem like lobbyists run Washington from behind the scenes. But their work isn’t completely opaque: They’re required to register with the House and the Senate when they lobby for a new client.

• Our new lobbying database will help you cover Congress and the organizations that may try to influence lawmakers. We hope this new database will be helpful to a wide variety of people, from informed citizens and civic activists to journalists.

=> ↺ Lobbying Registration Database

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ LETTER: This definitely was not censorship

• Several news articles, letters, and an editorial in this paper have mischaracterized recent events as “…infringing on freedom of speech….” The focus of the sample letter by Cathy Cloutier was not suppression, as alleged, but a show of strong disapproval of the book’s promotion. This is not a subtle distinction.

• Indigo/Coles is the only game in town for new publications and their promotion of anything implies integrity. A well-researched book would have been a boon not only to the immediate debate about the effluent plant but to the future of all industry in Nova Scotia. I wish there was one.

=> ↺ Conviviality vs Censorship: On Media Freedom in Sri Lanka

• Under the Presidency of Mahinda Rajapaksa between 2005 and 2015, government brutality and censorship towards the media in Sri Lanka reached new levels. This was to the extent that in the Reporters Without Borders’ Index of Press Freedom it was ranked 165 out of 170 countries in 2015 (up from 115 in 2005) of the most dangerous countries to be a journalist. Furthermore, in 2014 the island was declared the fourth most dangerous country in the Committee to Protect Journalists’ global index of journalists murdered with impunity.

• However, it would be wrong to see this as an exclusive period of censorship; to a certain extent this breakdown in conviviality began in the 1980s when the government suppressed the JVP insurgency through media censorship, threats of criminal defamation, coupled with disappearances and deaths. It continued with the beginning of the civil war in 1983 and was also brutal under Rajapaksa’s predecessor, President Kumaratunge. Although this authoritarian mode of governance was established earlier, it became increasingly violent during the decade of Rajapaksa’s presidency.

=> ↺ Censorship Still Alive and Well in Uzbekistan

• Since Shavkat Mirziyoyev assumed the presidency of Uzbekistan 15 months ago, some important, if modest, signs of hope have emerged following decades of human rights abuses. But it’s a mixed picture.

• Look at freedom of expression and media. On one hand, registered media outlets in Uzbekistan have begun to cover politically sensitive topics: the popular Uzbek-language daily Kun.uz, for example, has written about officials forcing public sector workers and students to pick cotton, despite an official ban on such mobilization. Reporting on this would have been unthinkable under the late president, Islam Karimov.

=> ↺ Open Rights Group respond to news BBFC proposed as Age Verification regulator

• Responding to the news that the BBFC are in line to be appointed Age Verification regulator, Jim Killock Executive Director of the Open Rights Group said:

• “The BBFC will struggle to ensure that Age Verification is safe, secure and anonymous. They are powerless to ensure people’s privacy.

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ Senator Calls on Courts to Increase Transparency of Surveillance Orders

• Federal courts must end the excessive secrecy surrounding law enforcement surveillance orders, a U.S. Senator urged in a letter on Friday. This secrecy block’s the public’s ability to fully understand how police conduct this surveillance, the lawmaker wrote.

• The letter, sent by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Or), asks federal courts to enact several important reforms, including establishing uniform procedures for publicizing basic information about when and how often law enforcement seeks information about our communications and other data held by services such as cell phone companies, Internet service providers, and online platforms.

=> ↺ Don’t Reauthorize NSA Spying in a Must-Pass Funding Bill

• The next two weeks will be a flurry of activity in Congress. Before they can leave for the holidays, our government must—at minimum—pass at least one bill to keep the government running and also decide what to do about a controversial NSA spying authority called Section 702. Some legislators want to reauthorize Section 702, without meaningful reform, by attaching it to must-pass spending legislation. This is a terrible idea. The legislative process surrounding Section 702 already lacks necessary transparency and deliberation.

• The new legislative stratagem gets complicated very quickly. Here’s what you need to know.

=> ↺ NSA Agent Used His Government Computer–And Public Funds–On Adult Dating Sites

• Documents from the National Security Agency (“NSA”) show an unnamed NSA employee using his government provided computer–and therefore public funds–for a series of personal issues while on the job.

• Those issues include a love affair apparently carried out over the messaging system of an adult dating website.

=> ↺ Facebook admits that spending time on social media can make you feel worse

• They detailed research from University of Michigan, which found that students randomly assigned to read Facebook for 10 minutes were in a worse mood at the end of the day than those who talked to friends or posted on the website.

• They also revealed how a study from UC San Diego and Yale found that people who clicked on about four times as many links as the average person, or who liked twice as many posts, reported worse mental health than average.

=> ↺ Facebook admits it poses mental health risk – but says using site more can help

• On Thursday, Chamath Palihapitiya, the former executive who criticized the company, walked back his comments, saying: “I genuinely believe that Facebook is a force for good in the world.”

=> ↺ Facebook says ‘passively consuming’ the News Feed will make you feel worse about yourself

=> ↺ Apple’s Face ID tech can’t tell two Chinese women apart

• However, a woman in China, known only is Yan, told the Jiangsu Broadcasting Corp this week that her co-worker was able to unlock her iPhone X using the face-scanning tech despite having reconfigured the facial recognition settings multiple times

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ Why does the U.S. government have to confiscate prisoner artwork from Guantanamo Bay?

• During the 14 years I spent cut off from the world in the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, I often found myself wondering whether people cared about the conditions under which I was being held. Since my release a little more than one year ago, I’ve been impressed by how many people do care — something that has been driven home to me again by the public reaction to reports of a change in policy toward artwork created by inmates in the prison. For several years, the U.S. government had a screening process that permitted artwork created by prisoners to be shared with family members and others outside the prison, but in November it announced it is no longer allowing prisoner art to be publicly released. As a result, these works can no longer be seen by anyone outside of Guantanamo. What’s more, the government has been saying that it owns the works of art and can destroy them if it wishes. I have been heartened by the individuals and organizations that have protested this cruel policy, as well as by the critical coverage in the U.S. and international press.

• But I can’t say that I was surprised by the news itself.

=> ↺ New Mexico Sheriff’s Office Pulls Over the Same Black Federal Agent — Three Times in a Month

• The ACLU of New Mexico sues the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office for the racial profiling of an ICE agent.

• By the third time Sherese Crawford got pulled over, she knew it was no matter of coincidence.

• Crawford is a 38-year-old African-American Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent recently on temporary assignment in Albuquerque, New Mexico. As part of her work, she was regularly required to rent a car and drive a lonely stretch of I-40 to travel between the ICE field office in Albuquerque and Milan, New Mexico. Over the course of less than a month, she was pulled over three times by the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office — twice by the same deputy.

• In none of these stops was she given a warning or citation. Her only crime: driving while black.

=> ↺ The federal government’s boldest land grab in a generation produced the first border wall — and a trail of abuse, mistakes and unfairness.

• The land agents started working the border between Texas and Mexico in the spring of 2007. Sometimes they were representatives from the Army Corps of Engineers. Other times they were officers from the U.S. Border Patrol, uniformed in green, guns tucked into side holsters. They visited tumbledown mobile homes and suburban houses with golf course views. They surveyed farms fecund with sugar cane, cotton and sorghum growing by the mud-brown Rio Grande. They delivered their blunt news to ranchers and farmers, sheet metal workers and university professors, auto mechanics and wealthy developers.

=> ↺ In Florida, the Racist War on Drugs Rages on

• A new report from The Sarasota-Herald Tribune has found that drug enforcement in Florida treats Black people much more severely than white people. This follows a Tribune report in 2015 exposing prejudice in Florida’s sentencing practices, showing that Blacks are punished with significantly longer prison sentences than whites convicted of the same crimes with similar facts.

• Disturbing? Absolutely. Unjust? Completely. Surprising? Not at all.

• The results of the Tribune’s investigation are sadly expected in America because the drug war has been a war against people of color since its inception decades ago. Data, studies, reports, and court decisions on stops, arrests, charges, pleas, and sentencing reach the same shameful conclusion: Blacks are treated far more harshly than whites.

• The report found that in drug cases, Black people spend two-thirds more time behind bars than white people. Blacks were almost three times more likely to be charged with committing crimes in “drug free” zones than whites , which enhances the severity of a sentence. Again unsurprisingly, Black people account for two-thirds of such enhanced convictions statewide. This is partly because in many urban areas, schools, churches, and public housing are closely spaced, such that entire Black communities – and not by coincidence – are deemed “drug free” zones in which drug offenses are subject to more draconian punishments.

=> ↺ A Backroom Deal Threatens to Weaken Real Police Reform in New York City

• On Tuesday, the New York City Council will vote on two police accountability bills. One represents real reform that will protect New Yorkers’ privacy rights when police ask to search them without probable cause. The other is faux reform that is the result of a backroom deal between powerful politicians and the New York Police Department.

• For more than five years, the two bills were collectively known as the Right to Know Act. Intro 541-C and Intro 182-D deal with improving communication and transparency during police stops and searches. 541-C, sponsored by Council Member Antonio Reynoso, will require the NYPD to develop a policy that instructs officers to let people know when they have the right to refuse to be searched. And when they conduct a “consensual” search, officers will also have to get video or written proof that an individual consented.

=> ↺ Watchdog Agency Issues Report on ICE Abuse as Agency Seeks to Acquire New Detention Centers

• These findings are hardly a surprise. Many of the findings have been documented for years by advocates and those who are forced to endure the abusive conditions inside of ICE’s sprawling detention system. In the last month alone, there have been reports of sexual abuse at the T. Don Hutto detention center in Texas, the death of an Iranian man at the detention facility in Aurora, Colorado, and reports of atrocious conditions, including forcing female detainees to urinate or defecate in plastic bags inside their cells, at an immigration jail in Richmond, California. Sadly, these cases are only a few examples of the dangerous, sometimes deadly conditions that persist in ICE detention facilities.

=> ↺ Chicago Police Win Big When Appealing Discipline

• A secretive appeals system has been knocking down the punishments of Chicago police officers no matter how serious their misconduct, undercutting the results of lengthy investigations and layers of review long after the public believes the cases were concluded.

• In the first examination of its kind, the Chicago Tribune and ProPublica Illinois found that 85 percent of disciplinary cases handled through the Chicago Police Department’s grievance process since 2010 led to officers receiving shorter suspensions or, in many cases, having their punishments overturned entirely.

• A suspension for punching a handcuffed arrestee, all caught on camera? Negotiable.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ Farewell, AIM: AOL Instant Messenger has signed off permanently

=> ↺ Net neutrality is now officially on life support. Here’s what happens next.

• The Federal Communications Commission has voted to repeal net neutrality, despite overwhelming public support for the regulation, which requires internet service providers like Verizon and Comcast to distribute internet access fairly and equally to everyone, regardless of how much they pay or where they’re located.

=> ↺ Net neutrality result: How did the FCC vote on the freedom of the internet?

=> ↺ What the Net Neutrality Repeal Means for Us

• The decision is likely to have major ramifications for consumers, online businesses and Internet service providers (ISPs). The existing regulations, put into place by Pai’s predecessor Tom Wheeler in 2015, codified longstanding Internet practice by explicitly requiring ISPs to treat all Internet traffic equally. In contrast to a cable provider, which can decide exactly what networks or services customers get for their monthly fee, ISPs are forbidden from discriminating among their customers. When you pay your fee to get online, you get everything. But under the new regime, a handful of the most powerful telecommunication companies in the U.S. – Comcast, Verizon, AT&T – will have unlimited freedom to slice and dice the Internet ecology as they please.

=> ↺ FCC’s Republican majority kills net neutrality

• Republican Sen. Susan Collins and Independent Sen. Angus King, both of Maine, joined Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Colo., in calling on the federal agency to “hold hearings on the net neutrality issue” that has “significant implications for our entire economy, and therefore merits the most thorough, deliberate, and thoughtful process that can be provided.”

=> ↺ Net neutrality rules are dead. Will my Internet bills go up?

=> ↺ The end of net neutrality: What it all means

• As part of this shift, oversight of internet protections will shift from the FCC to the Federal Trade Commission.

=> ↺ The FCC has created an ‘internet for the elite’

• While some on the FCC argue that the decision will boost economic growth, the only thing we know for certain is that eliminating net neutrality will make internet service look a lot more like cable TV. That’s good for a handful of corporations, but bad for just about everyone else.

=> ↺ Private Internet Access Statement On End of Net Neutrality

=> ↺ Motherboard & VICE Are Building a Community Internet Network

• To protect net neutrality, we need internet infrastructure that isn’t owned by big telecom.

=> ↺ US brings an end to net neutrality regulations

• And, as iTWire reported last month the repeal of the regulations could see ISPs given the power to charge websites large sums in order to be granted fast Internet access, whilst websites that do not pay the fees will have access to users slowed considerably.

=> ↺ The FCC Just Killed Net Neutrality. Now What?

• Most immediately, the activity will move to the courts, where the advocacy group Free Press, and probably others, will challenge the FCC’s decision. The most likely argument: that the commission’s decision violates federal laws barring agencies from crafting “arbitrary and capricious” regulations. After all, the FCC’s net neutrality rules were just passed in 2015. Activists and many members of Congress, including at least six Republicans, pushed for a delay in the vote, but apart from a brief delay due to a security issue, the vote occurred as planned.

=> ↺ The FCC’s Two Dissenting Voices Defend Net Neutrality To the End

• The agencies’s two Democratic commissioners, Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel, lashed out against the order during the FCC’s open meeting today.

=> ↺ FCC votes to kill net neutrality in an unsurprising move. What happens now?

• The impact on you at home: This is big. Net neutrality has prevented ISPs such as Comcast and Verizon from nickel-and-diming customers based on their Internet usage, or gouging Google to make sure YouTube isn’t throttled. But even more important than Netflix and Hulu HD streams is the access to information. Millions of people depend on the internet for basic services, and the repeal of net neutrality protection may threaten their access to it.

=> ↺ Ajit Pai is so cocky over net neutrality he’s dressing as Santa to take the p*ss

=> ↺ Net neutrality: How will US overhaul of internet laws affect the web?

• Net neutrality is the premise that customers are guaranteed an equal version of the internet. The repeal permits several tiers – allowing ISPs to charge more for quicker speeds and block websites belonging to customers who have not paid a premium.

=> ↺ FCC Repeals U.S. Net Neutrality Rules

• The FCC has repealed U.S. net neutrality rules. As a result of today’s vote, Internet providers have the freedom to restrict, or charge for, access to certain sites and services if they please. This also means that BitTorrent throttling and blocking could become commonplace once again, as it was a decade ago.

=> ↺ Net neutrality rules weakened by US regulator

• Restrictions on US broadband providers’ ability to prioritise one service’s data over another are to be reduced after a vote by a regulator.

=> ↺ FCC Repeals Net Neutrality Rules Amid Protests, Lawsuit Threats

• At the FCC meeting, Clyburn said that “the public can plainly see, that a soon-to-be-toothless FCC, is handing the keys to the Internet. The Internet, one of the most remarkable, empowering, enabling inventions of our lifetime, over to a handful of multi-billion dollar corporations.

=> ↺ Gutting Net Neutrality Is the Trump Administration’s Most Brutal Blow to Democracy Yet

• This cannot be the end of a free and open Internet. Activists must fight on in the courts, in Congress, and in the streets.

=> ↺ The FCC Voted to Repeal Net Neutrality

• “They’d be given the legal authority and power to be able to block your websites. The’d be able to shuffle your traffic and manipulate it so it could goes toward services with whom they have a commercial relationship and close you off from services from those with whom you do not. It would allow them to set up tolls online for you, the consumer, to reach the content you want,” she told Teen Vogue. They will have the power to do this. Our laws will no longer prevent them from doing this because our laws will no longer require internet openness. They would have the power to carve the internet into fast and slow lanes and charge you to access sites who haven’t engaged in a pay-for-play relationship. [Internet bills] could very well go up.”

=> ↺ FCC Scraps Net Neutrality Rules in US

• Individual states will also be barred from enacting their own rules governing the internet.

=> ↺ What could happen to net neutrality

• In the immediate future, consumers will start to see more deals on their internet plans, including “zero-rating”

=> ↺ Trump’s FCC Nukes Network Neutrality: What Happens Now?

• Network neutrality is the principle that the companies that sell access to the internet (Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, etc.) don’t get the power to influence how people use the internet — for example, by discriminating in favor or against certain data based on who is sending or receiving it, its purpose, or its content. Essentially, that means treating the internet like the utility it is: We don’t allow the phone company to decide whether to connect us to a relative based on their view of that relative’s politics. And our free access to all internet sites should be just the same.

=> ↺ Net Neutrality Repeal Is Only Part of Trump’s Surrender to Corporate Media

• The FCC is under attack—and so too is the First Amendment. As the primary regulator of how media and information gets to our nation’s citizens, the Federal Communications Commission has a critical role to play in protecting the open Internet, free speech, and free press in our democracy. Though the agency has always enjoyed a cozy relationship with the industries it regulates, ever since the Trump administration arrived in Washington, the FCC’s mission to preserve the public commons has been threatened, assaulted and torn asunder. And like a bad horror movie cliché, these calls to eviscerate the FCC have been coming from inside the agency.

• Repealing net neutrality has drawn a huge amount of public visibility—and rightly so—but that decision is just the latest in a string of ominous, industry-friendly giveaways by the Trump administration’s FCC. It has also rolled back local TV station ownership limits on media giants like Sinclair Broadcasting Group and rescinded the longtime “main studio” rule that required local stations to maintain community newsrooms and fostered more local journalism. And the agency’s leadership has begun a campaign to actively abdicate its enforcement mission and pass it over to the smaller, less well-funded Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which lacks the FCC’s deep industry knowledge and proactive regulatory power.

=> ↺ Comcast has been planning to ditch Net Neutrality principles for months

=> ↺ Documenting the laughable lies the FCC told at the hearing where it killed Net Neutrality

• The FCC is only allowed to change existing policies if they can show evidence of some change in facts, so at yesterday’s bomb-threat haunted hearing to destroy Net Neutrality, Trump FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and his Republican colleagues made a pro-forma recitation of the reasons justifying his extreme actions.

• These reasons were lies.

=> ↺ Donald Trump Jr. botches a basic net neutrality fact, and the internet lets him have it

• By getting a basic fact wrong while trying to blame Obama, Trump opened up the internet to ridicule him mercilessly — and that’s exactly what happened.

=> ↺ FCC faces legal battle after widely-condemned vote to repeal net neutrality

=> ↺ Net neutrality is dead — what happens next?

• Pro-neutrality groups are already preparing a legal challenge, arguing the order itself should be invalidated as illegal. With the draft text of Pai’s order already public, pro-neutrality lawyers like Public Knowledge’s Harold Feld have had plenty of time to plan. “The advantage of having seen a draft of the order first,” Feld says, “is that, as someone planning a judicial challenge, I’m pretty confident we will be successful.”

=> ↺ FCC chair: Net neutrality supporters ‘proven wrong’ day after repeal

• Pai went on to say that Kimmel and others were “proven wrong” by the fact that internet service providers (ISP) had not rolled out immediate changes Friday morning.

=> ↺ On eve of internet censorship vote, powerful AG uncovers explosive corruption scandal

• Raising grave new concerns about the process by which Donald Trump’s FCC is moving ahead to overturn net neutrality rules that protect consumer choice on the internet, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced Wednesday that millions of fake comments had been filed with the FCC in an effort to mimic grassroots support for internet censorship.

• The FCC’s vote on net neutrality is scheduled for Thursday, but Schneiderman is calling on the commission to delay it’s final decision until it can be determined who’s responsible for the massive scheme.

=> ↺ What is net neutrality? It protects us from corporate power

• This Thursday, Ajit Pai, Donald Trump’s choice to chair the Federal Communications Commission, will force a vote to repeal net neutrality protections for broadband providers. This is an important step backwards for our democracy. It will affect what consumers pay for broadband and what we can buy. More importantly, it will affect what we as citizens can say and to whom we can say it.

• In the age of Trump, a move to concentrate the power of speech in the hands of telecommunications giants whose financial fate depends on Republican political control is terrifying.

=> ↺ Majority of Tea Partiers Back Net Neutrality Principles, Polling Shows

• The Republican-controlled Federal Communications Commission on Thursday is widely expected to vote for a repeal of Obama-era net neutrality rules. But the long-running drama surrounding the issue has revealed surprising pockets of support for the existing regulations — including majority support from tea party supporters and conservative voters.

=> ↺ Net Neutrality Repeal Would Hurt #MeToo Movement And Minority Women

• A federal government plan to roll-back an Obama-era internet rule designed to level the online playing field would result in censorship on the web that would disproportionately affect women and minorities, experts said.

• The Federal Communications Commission will vote Thursday to end so-called net neutrality, which ensures internet service providers give consumers equal access to all content and do not favor or discriminate against certain sources or users.

=> ↺ Team Internet Is Far From Done: What’s Next For Net Neutrality and How You Can Help

• Defying the facts, the law, and the will of millions of Americans, the Federal Communications Commission has voted to repeal net neutrality protections. It’s difficult to understate how radical the FCC’s decision was.

• The Internet has operated under formal and informal net neutrality principles for years. For the first time, the FCC has not only abdicated its role in enforcing those principles, it has rejected them altogether.

• Here’s the good news: the fight is far from over, and Team Internet has plenty of paths forward.

=> ↺ Today’s net neutrality vote – an unsurprising, unfortunate disappointment

• We are incredibly disappointed that the FCC voted this morning – along partisan lines – to remove protections for the open internet. This is the result of broken processes, broken politics, and broken policies. As we have said over and over, we’ll keep fighting for the open internet, and hope that politicians decide to protect their constituents rather than increase the power of ISPs.

=> ↺ ‘Don’t break the 21st century nervous system’

• In the USA, millions of people have risen up against the FCC, making an obscure realm of telecoms regulation into a central question of public debate. We are well past peak indifference, and now people are turning up on our doorsteps of their own accord, convinced that the net is worth fighting for and asking what they can do to help.

• This isn’t a fight you win. The internet is too great a prize to any entity that can seize control over it for it to ever be free from danger. This is a fight you commit yourself to, with eternal vigilance.

=> ↺ Can A VPN Bypass Net Neutrality Rollback And Throttling? — Here Are 3 Top Services To Help You

=> ↺ RIP Open Web: FCC Officially Votes To Kill Net Neutrality

• The past one year’s effort made by American citizens has been rejected by the Federal Communications Committee, headed by Ajit Pai, which has just voted to repeal the net neutrality rules established under the Obama administration. It looks like Christmas came pretty early for ISP giants.

Intellectual Monopolies

=> ↺ Korea FTC defends global scope of its Qualcomm penalties as US judge warns of an antitrust “race to the bottom”

• Of the recent competition rulings against Qualcomm, Korea’s seem to have gone the furthest in imposing global remedies on the chipmaker’s licensing practices. At a recent forum on antitrust extraterritoriality, Judge Douglas Ginsburg of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia criticised this approach, saying it sets a precedent that the most restrictive antitrust regime should apply globally. But in a written statement, the Korean Free Trade Commission (KFTC) has defended its Qualcomm decision at length, signaling it will not back down from imposing global correctives.

• The exchange, if it can be called that, took place at a roundtable hosted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The event was off-the-record and closed to the public, but the slides presented by Ginsburg and the written submission prepared by the Korean government can both be accessed online.

=> ↺ New ABA Opinion of Particular Interest

• A lawyer may be adverse to a former client, but not in the same matter in which she represented the client, or in one which is “substantially related” to the representation of the former client. Generally, this requires determining whether it is reasonably likely that in the representation, the lawyer likely learned confidential information that likely can be used against the former client now.

=> ↺ Intellectual Property Rights In Trade – To Be Rethought?

• After two decades of intellectual property regimes in trade agreements, one could have some second thoughts, according to a number of panellists at the Trade and Sustainable Development Symposium, organised by the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD) and held alongside the 11th World Trade Organization Ministerial in Buenos Aires, Argentina this week.

Trademarks

=> ↺ We are all FUCT

• The Federal Circuit has ruled that trademark law’s bar against registering immoral or scandalous marks is an unconstitutional restriction of free speech. Thus, on appeal the court has reversed the TTAB’s holding that Bruneti’s mark FUCT is unregistrable.

=> ↺ Federal Circuit’s Brunetti ruling: barring immoral or scandalous marks unconstitutional

• The Federal Circuit has overturned the TTAB’s rejection of a trademark application for the “FUCT”, ruling that Section 2(a) of the Lanham Act’s bar on registering immoral or scandalous marks is an unconstitutional restriction of free speech.

Copyrights

=> ↺ Cable Reveals Extent Of Lapdoggery From Swedish Govt On Copyright Monopoly

• Among the treasure troves of recently released WikiLeaks cables, we find one whose significance has bypassed Swedish media. In short: every law proposal, every ordinance, and every governmental report hostile to the net, youth, and civil liberties here in Sweden in recent years have been commissioned by the US government and industry interests.

• I can understand that the significance has been missed, because it takes a whole lot of knowledge in this domain to recognize the topics discussed. When you do, however, you realize that the cable lists orders for the Swedish Government to implement a series of measures that significantly weakens Sweden’s competitive advantage in the IT field against the US. We had concluded this was the case, but had believed things had come from a large number of different sources. That was wrong. It was all coordinated, and the Swedish Government had received a checklist to tick off. The Government is described in the cables as “fully on board”.

=> ↺ Kim Dotcom’s Extradition Battle Suffers High Court Setback

• As Kim Dotcom continues his fight to avoid extradition to the United States, the entrepreneur suffered a setback this morning. Siding with the US government in a ruling published this morning, Justice Brewer at the New Zealand High Court rejected seven out of eight arguments put forward by the entrepreneur for judicial review.

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