This page permanently redirects to gemini://gemini.techrights.org/2018/02/08/mozilla-iot/.

● 02.08.18

● Links 8/2/2018: Belated Coverage of Plasma 5.12.0, Mozilla’s ‘IoT’

Posted in News Roundup at 6:50 am by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

Desktop

=> ↺ Flickergate: Users Put Surface Pro in Freezer to Fix Issue Microsoft Ignores

• A screen flickering issue impacting Microsoft’s Surface Pro is pushing owners to some extreme workarounds, including putting their devices in freezers.

• As weird as this may sound, this solution solves the problem temporarily, removing the flickering completely and returning the display to normal.

• A group of Surface Pro owners launched a website called “Flickergate” to explain the issue in detail and to emphasize that Microsoft has until now ignored all reports despite hundreds of post being published on its very own forums. One such thread on Microsoft Community has no less than 140 pages of users complaining about the issue since early 2017.

Server

=> ↺ Containers from user space

• In a linux.conf.au 2018 keynote called “Containers from user space” [...]

• Frazelle started by noting that she has recently moved to Microsoft — “selling out has been amazing”…

Kernel Space

=> ↺ Linux module aims at security, but will it make the cut?

• The Linux Kernel Runtime Guard has been devised by the Openwall project.

• LKRG checks at runtime to find out if any exploits for security flaws are in a system; if so, it attempts to block such attacks.

• It can also detect any privilege escalation in processes that are running and kill the guilty process before it can execute any code.

=> ↺ Dell / Lenovo / ASUS / Acer Laptop Platform Driver Updates For Linux 4.16

• Darren Hart of VMware’s Open-Source Technology Center sent out the platform-drivers-x86 updates today for the Linux 4.16 kernel.

=> ↺ D-Bus Broker 10 Released

• What you won’t find landing in the current in-development Linux 4.16 kernel is BUS1, the in-kernel IPC mechanism built out of the failure of KDBUS to reach the mainline kernel. While BUS1 isn’t ready for mainline yet, D-Bus Broker continues moving along as a D-Bus compatible message bus delivering higher performance and reliability.

=> ↺ Linux Kernel’s GCC-Plugins Infrastructure Now Supports GCC 8

• The GCC 8 stable compiler (GCC 8.1) should be officially released in the next month or two and Linux 4.16′s gcc-plugins infrastructure is picking up support for this annual update to the GNU Compiler Collection.

=> ↺ Linux 4.16 Picking Up Another SMP Optimization

• Last week Ingo Molnar sent in the main batch of scheduler updates for the Linux 4.16 kernel merge window, which included smarter task migration to try to yield better scalability, while today a second set of updates were sent in with an additional SMP optimization.

• The optimization work last week and the new set of tweaks sent in today come courtesy of Linux developer Mel Gorman. The SMP balancing optimizations sent in via this pull request should provide some benefits in some situations, particularly if using the XFS file-system.

=> ↺ Some stable kernel updates

• The 4.15.2, 4.14.18, and 3.18.94 stable kernels have been released; each contains the usual set of important fixes and updates. There are no 4.9.x or 4.4.x updates coming in this particular set.

=> ↺ Linux 4.15.2

=> ↺ Linux 4.14.18

=> ↺ Linux 3.18.94

=> ↺ Too many lords, not enough stewards

• For anyone who has followed Daniel Vetter’s talks over the last year or two, it is fairly clear that he is not happy with the kernel development process and the role played by kernel maintainers. In a strongly worded talk at linux.conf.au (LCA) 2018 in Sydney, he further explored the topic (that he also raised at LCA 2017) in a talk entitled “Burning down the castle”. In his view, kernel development is broken and it is unlikely to improve anytime soon.

• He started by noting that this talk would be a “rather more personal talk than others I give”. It is his journey from first looking in on the kernel in high school to learn how operating systems work. The kernel developers were his heroes who created this awesome operating system by discussing things out in the open.

• Eventually he started scratching his own itch in the graphics subsystem, which led to him getting hired to work on Linux graphics professionally on a small team. He got volunteered to be the kernel maintainer for that team, which grew from three to twenty people in a year or two. In that time he learned the tough lesson that “leading teams is leading people”. But he has learned that the way kernel maintainers work is making developers unhappy, including him. The talk would be a look at how he learned just how broken things are.

=> ↺ Media Subsystem Changes Head Into Linux 4.16: NVIDIA Tegra Decoder, Xbox One TV Tuner

• While the Linux 4.16 merge window is nearing the end of the line, there still are some feature updates still being sent in, including a big batch of media subsystem changes sent in on Tuesday.

Linux Foundation

=> ↺ OPNFV Certifies NFV Infrastructure Via Verification Program

• The OPNFV open source project today announced its OPNFV Verified Program (OVP), which will bring consistency to certification of network functions virtualization (NFV) components at the infrastructure level.

• OPNFV has been helping vendors and service providers by testing NFV components across various open source ecosystems. Its new OVP initiative will formalize this process and even provide a “OVP certified” logo to components that comply.

=> ↺ OPNFV verification program establishes testing, deployment methods to simplify NFV adoption

• The​ OPNFV Project​ has introduced the OPNFV Verified Program (OVP)​ with an eye toward simplifying adoption of commercial NFV products. ​

• ​OVP establishes an industry threshold based on OPNFV capabilities and test cases. Users can get started at the new ​OPNFV Verified portal​.

=> ↺ OPNFV Verification Program to Simplify Commercial NFV Adoption

• The OPNFV Project, an open source project within The Linux Foundation that facilitates the development and evolution of Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) components across various open source ecosystems through integration, deployment, and testing, today announced the availability of the OPNFV Verified Program (OVP).

Graphics Stack

=> ↺ RadeonSI VCN Encode Now Supports HEVC Main

• More video acceleration related commits landed in the Mesa 18.1-dev Git tree this week.

• The code that was merged on Monday by AMD’s Boyuan Zhang allows for HEVC/H.265 GPU-accelerated video encoding when using the VCN block. The “Video Core Next” hardware is initially just found on Raven Ridge APUs but almost certainly coming to next-generation discrete GPUs.

Applications

=> ↺ The 7 Best Linux Terminal Emulators

• If you run Linux for any length of time, eventually you’re going to figure out that doing some things from the terminal is not only fast but often easier than trying to do the same task from a GUI. This article will provide you with some of the best Linux terminal emulators for those of you needing reliable options for business environments.

=> ↺ New Linux User? Try These 8 Great Essential Linux Apps

• When you are new to Linux, even if you are not new to computers in general, one of the problems you will face is which apps to use. With millions of Linux apps, the choice is certainly not easy. Below you will find eight (out of millions) essential Linux apps to get you settled in quickly.

• Most of these apps are not exclusive to Linux. If you have used Windows/Mac before, chances are you are familiar with some of them. Depending on what your needs and interests are, you might not need all these apps, but in my opinion, most or all of the apps on this list are useful for newbies who are just starting out on Linux.

Proprietary

=> ↺ Missing Microsoft Office? Try SoftMaker Office 2018 for Linux

• The latest release of this lesser-known office suite from German developers SoftMaker has been available on Windows since late last year, but is now finally ready for Linux too.

=> ↺ SoftMaker Office 2018 is Now Available for Linux

• Premium office suite SoftMaker has released its latest version for Linux. The new version comes with ribbon interface, improved compatibility with Microsoft Office and several other improvements.

=> ↺ SoftMaker Office 2018 arrive aussi pour GNU/Linux

=> ↺ Opera 51 Released: It’s 38% Faster Than Firefox Quantum 58

• Its developers claim that the new version, based Chromium 64, is around 38% faster…

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ How to set up LXD on Civo (new UK VPS provider)

=> ↺ Web Server Setup Series – How To Setup And Manage Your Own Web Server

• Today I am starting web server setup series. In this series of articles, I’ll teach you how you can setup a web server or turn your own computer into a web server. I’ll also teach you how you can manage your web server, increase server security and guard it against specific types of attacks.

=> ↺ The Linux ranger

• For those of us who cut our technical teeth on the Unix/Linux command line, the relatively new ranger makes examining files a very different experience. A file manager that works inside a terminal window, ranger provides useful information and makes it very easy to move into directories, view file content or jump into an editor to make changes.

• Unlike most file managers which work on the desktop, but leave you to the whims of ls, cat and more to get a solid handle on files and contents, ranger provides a very nice mix of file listing and contents displays with an easy way to start editing. In fact, among some Linux users, ranger has become very popular.

=> ↺ How to Upgrade Docker on Fedora / CentOS

=> ↺ How to fix broken USB install damaging your Linux dual boot

=> ↺ collectd scripts for the Virgin Media Super Hub

=> ↺ Complaining Works.

=> ↺ 19 grep command examples

=> ↺ Save Some Battery On Our Linux Machines With TLP

=> ↺ Programming in Color with ncurses

=> ↺ Linux Switching Problems – Just Ask Matt

=> ↺ How to Secure Your Accounts With a U2F Key or YubiKey

=> ↺ How to Create Custom Header Template for Shell Scripts in Vim

=> ↺ How to Create Custom AMI in AWS vlog

Wine or Emulation

=> ↺ CodeWeavers has Released CrossOver 17.1.0 for Linux and MacOS

• I am delighted to announce that CodeWeavers has just released CrossOver 17.1.0 for both macOS and Linux. CrossOver 17.1.0 has many improvements to the core Windows compatibility layer and also specific enhancements for several popular applications.

Games

=> ↺ Looks like the Linux market share on Steam went up in January

• When I say “went up”, I don’t mean we actually increased. Well, we did, but we’re still not at the levels we were before PUBG’s (PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS) release on Steam. Anyway…the January 2018 market share on Steam for Linux was 0.41% (+ 0.15%).

=> ↺ Europa Universalis IV: Rule Britannia announced

=> ↺ The very explosive Mercenary Kings gets a large free content update

=> ↺ Some initial thoughts on the Logitech Driving Force G29 Steering Wheel

• I had been complaining about how hard it was in DiRT Rally with a tiny gamepad stick, so I picked up the Logitech Driving Force G29 Steering Wheel and here’s some initial thoughts on it.

=> ↺ The Game Director of MMO Albion Online has outlined plans for roaming mobs and new item drops

• The developers of Albion Online [Official Site] mentioned before they plan to make the world a bit more interesting and now they’re talking more about roaming mobs.

=> ↺ Crossing Souls, an action-adventure inspired by the 80′s with cartoon cutscenes now has a demo

• Truthfully, Crossing Souls [GOG, Steam] is not a game I was actually familiar with until GOG emailed me about it. Turns out this sweet action-adventure inspired by the 80′s is releasing soon and it now has a demo.

=> ↺ SDL Now Supports Wayland’s XDG-Shell

• The SDL library that’s most commonly associated with being an abstraction layer used by Linux games now has Wayland XDG-Shell support.

• SDL2 has continued offering good Wayland support and the latest work on this back-end by Ryan Gordon is adding XDG-Shell support. XDG-Shell is used for managing surfaces under Wayland compositors in dealing with window dragging/resizing/stacking and other actions.

=> ↺ Deep Sixed, the colourful & difficult space adventure sim to release earlier, now on Feb 12th

• What will you do if everything on your spaceship breaks? You can find out soon as Deep Sixed [Official Site, Steam] is getting an early release on February 12th.

• Not only that, it will also release with 25% off for two weeks to celebrate the early launch. So you will be able to pick it up for $9.74 at launch. Also, to be clear, it will come with same-day Linux support.

=> ↺ Guts and Glory is the most disturbingly hilarious racing game I’ve ever played

• I apparently missed the boat when it came to Guts and Glory [Steam, Official Site], a game a contributor covered here back in 2016. I’ve now played it and I came away both disturbed and highly amused.

=> ↺ MXGP3 – Motocross is showing new signs of Linux support

• We’ve known for a while that Virtual Programming were porting MXGP3 – The Official Motocross Videogame to Linux, now it seems it may be closer to release.

• Yesterday, the Linux and Mac content appeared on SteamDB which is a clear sign that work is progressing on the port. VP have been pretty silent about it, so we have no idea when it will actually release. Good to know it’s still coming though!

=> ↺ Pocket Universe : Create Your Community, a game that combines strategy and RPG elements is now on Linux

• Pocket Universe : Create Your Community [Steam, Official Site], a game that claims to combine strategy and RPG elements added Linux support last month.

• The developer, Core Steel Game Studio, announced on January 21st the release of the Linux (and Mac) versions, along with some optimizations and an update to the AI.

Desktop Environments/WMs

=> ↺ MATE 1.20 released

• After 11 months of development the MATE Desktop team are pleased as punch to announce the release of MATE Desktop 1.20. We’d like to thank every MATE contributor for their help making this release possible.

=> ↺ Quarter Window Tiling Support added to the MATE Desktop

• Support for quarter window tiling has been added to the MATE desktop. The feature is one of several improvements shipping in the latest stable release of the ‘retrospective’ desktop environment, which was forked from GNOME 2 back in 2011. Specifically its MATE’s window manager Marco that’s been gifted support for ‘quadrant window tiling’.

=> ↺ MATE 1.20 Released With HiDPI Abilities, Global Menu Support

• After nearly one year in development, lead MATE developer Martin Wimpress has announced version 1.20 of this GNOME2-forked desktop environment.

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

=> ↺ KMyMoney 5.0.0 released

• The KMyMoney development team is proud to present version 5.0.0 of its open source Personal Finance Manager.

• As with every release, the KMyMoney development team has been working hard to make this release better and easier to use in every way. We have also made quite a few improvements. We are confident you will like what you see.

• The largest amount of work has gone towards basing this version on KDE Frameworks. Many of the underlying libraries used by the application have been reorganized and improved, but most of that is behind the scenes, and not directly visible to the end user. Some of the general look and feel may have changed, but the basic functionality of the program remains the same, aside from intentional improvements and additions.

=> ↺ KMyMoney 5.0 Released, Ported To KDE Frameworks 5

• KMyMoney, the KDE personal finance manager program, has reached version 5.0 and with that big “5″ release it’s been ported to KDE Frameworks 5.

• KMyMoney 5.0 is now running on KDE Frameworks 5 and the many changes involved there with adapting to new/updated libraries. There has also been bug fixes along the way, improvements to generating money reports, support for logarithmic axes in report graphics, support for more currencies, and a variety of bug fixes both user-facing and other internal code improvements.

=> ↺ Plasma 5.12 LTS is in KDE neon User Editions

• Plasma 5.12 LTS was launched today after some months focusing on speed and stability of the original and best Linux desktop.

• We’ve updated the packages in KDE neon User Edition and in KDE neon User LTS Edition. The installable image is also updated.

=> ↺ Plasma 5.12.0

• Plasma 5.12 LTS is the second long-term support release from the Plasma 5 team. We have been working hard, focusing on speed and stability for this release. Boot time to desktop has been improved by reviewing the code for anything which blocks execution. The team has been triaging and fixing bugs in every aspect of the codebase, tidying up artwork, removing corner cases, and ensuring cross-desktop integration. For the first time, we offer our Wayland integration on long-term support, so you can be sure we will continue to provide bug fixes and improvements to the Wayland experience.

=> ↺ The future of distros

• Today KDE released Plasma 5.12 with Long Term Support–the culmination of more than a year of work. It’s really awesome, and we think you’ll love it!

=> ↺ Qt Creator 4.6 Beta released

• The possibly most noteworthy and least directly visible change is that we upgraded the backend for the Clang code model from Clang 3.9 to Clang 5.0. This enables support for many C++17 features that were not available in Clang 3.9. The Clang code model is not used by default. Open Help > About Plugins (Qt Creator > About Plugins on macOS) and turn on the ClangCodeModel plugin to enable it.

=> ↺ Qt Creator 4.6 Beta Rolls Out With C++17 Features, Navigation Improvements

• The Qt Company this morning announced the beta availability of the Qt Creator 4.6 integrated development environment.

• While it has been two months to the day since the Qt Creator 4.5 release, there is a fair amount of changes in store for the Qt Creator 4.6 release.

• Thanks to Qt Creator 4.6 Beta upgrading its Clang code model back-end from v3.9 to v5.0, there is now support for many more C++17 features. Qt Creator 4.6 also now allows for integrating Clang-Tidy and Clazy warnings into diagnostic messages within the C++ editor.

=> ↺ AtCore: 100 Downloads \o/

• Last week we made the first release of AtCore. But before that, we left AtCore on the beta version for more than a month until the 1.0 release. With the 3 months that AtCore is out for public use, we didn’t receive any bug report, but a lot of congrats and feature requests.

GNOME Desktop/GTK

=> ↺ Updates on the Endless App Center / GNOME Software

• The great majority of my work at Endless is to (try to) tame GNOME Software and apply the changes that make it what we simply call “the App Center” (repo here) in the Endless OS. This is a lot of work and usually I’d love to share more often what I am doing but end up neglecting the blog due to the lack of time. So here’s a summary of what I have done the past few months.

Distributions

=> ↺ The best Linux distros of 2018

• If you can’t stand the lackluster security of a Windows computer, but macOS is much too shallow, allow us to introduce you to Linux. It is, quite simply, the ultimate in open source software. The OS started out as being exclusive to regular x86 desktop PCs, but has since found its way into everything from Android phones to Google Chromebooks.

• Linux is based on the Unix family of operating systems, which rose to fame in the late 1970s. It has been adopted by various software developers and turned into various ‘distributions’ or ‘distros’. All of the top Linux distros use the Linux kernel, which can be thought of as the heart and soul of the operating system. The various desktop environments for these distros is then built around it.

Reviews

=> ↺ Manjaro XFCE Linux Review – For The Record

• Manjaro XFCE Linux Review. Today I take a look at Manjaro XFCE and I must say, there’s a lot to like about it. I also share some tidbits that I like about this release in addition to some issues I didn’t quite understand as well.

New Releases

=> ↺ Kali Linux 2018.1 Release

• Welcome to our first release of 2018, Kali Linux 2018.1. This fine release contains all updated packages and bug fixes since our 2017.3 release last November. This release wasn’t without its challenges–from the Meltdown and Spectre excitement (patches will be in the 4.15 kernel) to a couple of other nasty bugs, we had our work cut out for us but we prevailed in time to deliver this latest and greatest version for your installation pleasure.

=> ↺ Kali Linux 2018.1 Released For Ethical Hackers — Download ISO And Torrent Files Here

• In 2016, Offensive Security–the developer of Kali Linux ethical hacking distro–decided to switch to a rolling release model. However, from time to time, they keep releasing the Kali snapshots with all the latest patches, fixes, and updates. Following the same tradition, the developers have pushed the first snapshot for 2018.

=> ↺ OSMC’s January update is here

• OSMC’s January update is ready with a wide range of improvements and fixes to keep your OSMC device running in tip-top shape.

Gentoo Family

=> ↺ Gentoo at FOSDEM 2018

• Gentoo Linux participated with a stand during this year’s FOSDEM 2018, as has been the case for the past several years. Three Gentoo developers had talks this year, Haubi was back with a Gentoo-related talk on Unix?

Arch Family

=> ↺ Arch monthly January

• Arch Linux Trusted Users, Developers and members of the Security team have been at FOSDEM. Next year there will be more stickers hopefully and maybe a talk, but it was great to meet some Arch users in real life, discuss and even hack on the Security Tracker.

Red Hat Family

=> ↺ Red Hat: open source genesis, to mainstreaming revelations

• Stormy Peters, senior manager for the Red Hat community team has reflected on what open source has accomplished over the years.

• Peters insists that the open source community has changed not only how software is developed but how companies collaborate. Pointing to the number of times she has read about things in science fiction books and then gone on to using them in everyday life, she says that even when new solutions are not completely built on open source, they very typically run on various pieces of open source infrastructure.

=> ↺ QCT, Intel, and Red Hat Target Telco Central Offices

• Quanta Cloud Technology (QCT), along with Intel and Red Hat, announced telco products that target telecommunications operators’ central offices. The new systems, based on commodity hardware and open, software-defined architectures, will help operators meet performance and low-latency demands of 5G applications, according to the vendors.

• Last October, QCT and Intel launched new data center infrastructure called Rackgo R. These systems are based on the Intel Rack Scale Design (RSD) software framework, which disaggregates compute, storage, and network resources. They run on QCT hardware and use QCT management software that allows operators to spin up or spin down compute or storage resources within the same data center as workloads change.

=> ↺ ASU student named finalist for Red Hat’s ‘Women in Open Source’ award

• When a teenaged Nikki Stevens built her first website, she did not foresee the barriers she would encounter in pursuit of her newfound passion. Now a doctoral candidate with Arizona State University’s School for the Future of Innovation in Society, she has founded two organizations, works a lucrative career as a technical architect and freelance software engineer and has been selected as a finalist for Red Hat’s “Women in Open Source Award.”

Finance

=> ↺ Glancy Prongay & Murray LLP Commences Investigation on Behalf of Red Hat, Inc. Investors (RHT)

=> ↺ Right After Earnings, The Intelligent Options Trade in Red Hat Inc

=> ↺ William S. Kaiser Sells 7,700 Shares of Red Hat Inc (RHT) Stock

=> ↺ Shanda Payment Holdings LTD Boosted Its Position in General Electric Co (GE) as Market Value Declined; Wunderlich Capital Managemnt Maintains Position in Red Hat Software (RHT)

=> ↺ Investor Watch: Looking at the Numbers for Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE:RHT)

Fedora

=> ↺ What is the next step in Anaconda modularization?

• As the modularization of Anaconda is under heavy development, you might want to know what is the status of this project.

=> ↺ Want Better Battery Life on Linux? Use Fedora

=> ↺ F27-20180204 Updated isos released

Debian Family

Derivatives

Canonical/Ubuntu

=> ↺ Ubuntu Server development summary – 06 February 2018

• Below is a summary of uploads to the development and supported releases.

=> ↺ LXD weekly status #33

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ Open spec Linux/Android SBCs tap high-end Allwinner and Rockchip SoCs

• Pine64 has launched a “Pine H64” SBC for $26 to $45 featuring Allwinner’s H6 SoC, mini-PCIe, and USB 3.0. It also unveiled a Rockchip RK3399 based “RockPro64” SBC that will sell for $59 to $79 with PCIe, USB 3.0, and a USB Type-C based DisplayPort.

• Pine64 announced two open-spec, Linux and Android-ready boards with the same 127 x 79 x 19mm footprint and 40-pin connector as its popular, Allwinner A64 based Pine A64 . Due to their more advanced processors and interfaces, such as PCIe and USB 3.0, the now available, Allwinner’s H6 based Pine H64 and the Rockchip RK3399 based RockPro64, due to launch Mar. 15, are priced much higher than the Pine A64.

=> ↺ RK3399 based Odroid-N1 SBC doubles up on SATA III

• Hardkernel unveiled a community-backed “Odroid-N1” SBC with a Rockchip RK3399, GbE and HDMI 2.0 ports, a 40-pin GPIO, and a pair each of PCIe-based SATA III, USB 3.0, and USB 2.0 ports.

• The Rockchip RK3399 juggernaut continues to roll through the open-spec single-board computer world, with Hardkernel’s Odroid project the latest to tap the hexa-core SoC. Hardkernel released images, specs, and extensive benchmarks on a prototype for its storage-oriented Odroid-N1 board, which it plans to launch for about $110 in May or June.

=> ↺ This open-source Echo rival respects your privacy and doesn’t want to sell you anything

• While a real butler will cost you a fortune in wages, digital assistants are cheap and plentiful – and with names almost as archaic as Jeeves, to boot. Alexa, Bixby, Cortana, Siri and Google Assistant all want your business, but there’s a reason the prices are so tempting: each is backed by a massive company very keen to tempt you into its ecosystem for targeted advertising, direct sales or general company revenue.

• This week’s crowdfund is different: a smart speaker that has a refreshing desire not to sell at you. Alphr readers, meet Mycroft.

=> ↺ Mozilla’s IoT software for the Raspberry Pi gets major rev

• Mozilla has released an improved 0.3 version of its open source, Linux-based Things Gateway software for setting up a home automation gateway on the Raspberry Pi, featuring a new rules engine and improved voice support.

• In July, Mozilla announced a Project Things Internet of Things project for a decentralized open source gateway that uses standard web technologies. The software is designed to comply with the W3C’s Web of Things (WoT) standard. The project previously released an early version of a Things Gateway stack that runs on a Raspberry Pi. Now, it’s introducing a new release (v.0.3) of the gateway software, along with a tutorial to help users get started.

=> ↺ Mozilla Announces Project Things, ZFS Version 0.7.6, Kali Linux New Release and More

• Mozilla announced Project Things yesterday, “an open framework for connecting your devices to the web”. According to the Mozilla Blog, “We kicked off ‘Project Things’, with the goal of building a decentralized ‘Internet of Things’ that is focused on security, privacy, and interoperability.”

=> ↺ Lars and the Real Internet of Things – Part 1

• First, though, my history with home automation:

• When I was a teenager in the 1970s, I had an analog alarm clock with an electrical outlet on the back labeled “coffee”. About ten minutes before the alarm would go off, it would turn on the power to the outlet. This was apparently to start a coffee maker that had been setup the night before. I, instead, used the outlet to turn on my record player so I could wake to music of my own selection. Ten years after the premier of the Jetsons automated utopia, this was the extent of home automation available to the average consumer.

• By the late 1970s and into the 1980s, the landscape changed in consumer home automation. A Scottish electronics company conceived of a remote control system that would communicate over power lines. By the mid 1980s, the X10 system of controllers and devices was available at Radio Shack and many other stores.

• [....]

• My next blog posting will walk through the process of downloading and setting up a Mozilla Things Gateway.

=> ↺ Build your own phono preamplifier

• I was fortunate to receive a new phono cartridge for Christmas. What a lovely present! And of course, there is great pleasure (or, I suppose, great frustration, depending on one’s point of view) in all the tinkering required to remove the old phono cartridge, mount the new one, and correctly set things up.

• For some expert advice on this matter, I turned to the excellent instructional videos and articles by Michael Fremer, a vinyl enthusiast and audio journalist with many years of experience in all things phono. Rather than offer a single representative link here, I recommend searching for “Michael Fremer cartridge setup video” in your favorite search engine.

=> ↺ Atom C3000 based net appliance offers eight LAN ports

• Advantech’s FWA-1012VC follows a number of headless networking appliances that run Linux on Intel’s Atom C3000 (“Denverton”) SoC, including Aaeon’s recent FWS-2360 and Axiomtek’s NA362. The FWA-1012VC stands out from both competitors by offering more wireless expansion options.

Tizen

=> ↺ Deal Alert! Get exclusive offers on Samsung wearables this Valentine

Android

=> ↺ Google Play Services 12.2.09 fixes Android’s ‘Check for Update’ feature

=> ↺ Android creator Andy Rubin seeks $34.6 million for Bay Area home and vineyard

=> ↺ New Monero-Mining Malware Targets Android Devices, Thousands Infected

=> ↺ How to Check Your AirPods’ Battery Life on an Android Phone

=> ↺ Android developers get programming extensions for Kotlin

=> ↺ Aly: Android beats iPhone

=> ↺ Best Kodi Box 2018: Top Android TV set-top boxes for Kodi streaming

=> ↺ OnePlus 5T gets Android 8.0 Oreo: Notification dots, emojis and everything else new

=> ↺ How to make any Android phone feel as fast as an iPhone

=> ↺ MSN News beta for Android gets some modern design tweaks

=> ↺ Android smartphone maker Wileyfox confirms it has entered into administration in the UK

=> ↺ Amazon’s amazing Android smartphone deals are getting even better

=> ↺ Google adds AR objects to its GIF-making Android app

=> ↺ Hackers infect Android phones, TVs to mine cryptocurrency

=> ↺ How to use Snapchat’s new font and Do Not Disturb features on Android

=> ↺ Google Play Services 12.2.09 appears to fix Android’s ‘Check for update’ button [APK Download]

=> ↺ UK Android upstart Wileyfox goes into administration

=> ↺ Own a Samsung Galaxy S8? This Android Oreo update is the news you’ve been waiting for

=> ↺ Apple, Android Attacked by Monero Mining Malware

=> ↺ How to uninstall the Snapchat update on iPhone and Android

=> ↺ Telegram for Android Gets Instant Video Streaming, Auto-Night Mode, and More

=> ↺ Samsung launches new tech to help low-end phones take better snaps

=> ↺ Nougat is now most popular Android operating system

=> ↺ Google brings an AR mode to its Motion Stills app on Android

=> ↺ Amazon Prime Exclusive Android phones dump lock-screen ads [Update]

=> ↺ Google Chrome for Android Will Soon Support Manually Adding New Passwords

Free Software/Open Source

=> ↺ 23 open source audio-visual production tools

• Open source is well established in cloud infrastructure, web hosting, embedded devices, and many other areas. Fewer people know that open source is a great option for producing professional-level audio-visual materials.

• As a product owner and sometimes marketing support person, I produce a lot of content for end users: documentation, web articles, video tutorials, event booth materials, white papers, interviews, and more. I have found plenty of great open source software that helps me do my job producing audio, video, print, and screen graphics. There are a lot of reasons that people choose open source over proprietary options, and I’ve compiled this list of open source audio and video tools for people who…

=> ↺ GStreamer 1.14 Working On AV1 & RTSP 2.0 Support, Promote MP3 Encoder/Decoder

• GStreamer core developer Tim-Philipp Müller has provided some insight about some current and upcoming happenings for the GStreamer multimedia framework project. He also addressed the recurring comment of “write it in Rust!” for better security/safety/reliability.

=> ↺ Happy birthday open source: A look back at the software that’s pushing tech forward

• From that original definition, the idea of “free” (as in “freedom,” not “price”) software was born. In part, because of the Open Source Definition, plenty of game-changing software has been developed. However, even before the Open Source Definition came into being, there was Richard Stallman, who launched the GNU Project, aimed at creating an operating system free from source code restraints. In 1985, Stallman published the GNU Manifesto in Dr. Dobb’s Journal of Software Tools. Eight years after that, Eric S. Raymond would go on to publish The Cathedral and the Bazaar, which was a detailed analysis of the hacker community as it pertains to free software principles. It was Raymond’s publication that led Netscape to release their Navigator browser as free software.

=> ↺ Nextcloud 13 Released With Better Interface, End-To-End Encryption

• The ownCloud-forked Nextcloud software for file hosting and communication is out with their latest major release.

• Nextcloud 13 is a big release with improvements to the user-interface, end-to-end encryption support is available as a tech preview, much better performance, new collaboration capabilities, Nextcloud Talk is available for built-in audio/video/text communication, and a wide range of other work has taken place over the last nine months.

=> ↺ For Open-Source Software, the Developers Are All of Us

• This problem goes back decades and has multiple root causes that culminate in the mess we have today. Hardware and software makers lack liability for flaws, which leads to sub-par rigor in verifying that systems are hardened against known vulnerabilities. A rise in advertising revenue from “big data” encourages firms to hoard information, looking for the right time to cash out their users’ information. Privacy violations go largely unpunished in courts, and firms regularly get away with enormous data breaches without paying any real price other than pride.

• But it doesn’t have to be this way. Open software development has been a resounding success for businesses, in the form of Linux, BSD and the hundreds of interconnected projects for their platforms. These open platforms now account for the lion’s share of the market for servers, and businesses are increasingly looking to open software for their client structure as well as for being a low-cost and high-security alternative to Windows and OS X.

=> ↺ Open-Source Single Sign-On (SSO)

• Single sign-on (SSO) solutions are a popular category within the identity and access management (IAM) sector. This is especially true when you look at the fact that SaaS adoption among small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) doubled in 2014, and has quadrupled since 2015 (Blissfully). According to the same report, SMBs use 50+ SaaS products on average, and IT admins have been adopting SSO solutions to help manage user access to these 50+ SaaS applications. However, single sign-on solutions can get extremely pricey, so it’s no wonder that IT organizations are searching for open-source single sign-on alternatives.

=> ↺ Increasing open-source inclusivity with paper circuits

• Open-source software has an inclusiveness problem that will take some innovative approaches to fix. But, Andrew “bunnie” Huang said in his fast-moving linux.conf.au 2018 talk, if we don’t fix it we may find we have bigger problems in the near future. His approach to improving the situation is to make technology more accessible — by enabling people to create electronic circuits on paper and write code for them.

• Huang started by asking why we should care about making technology more inclusive. Open-source software gets its power from inclusiveness; that power is so strong that we can (quoting Chris DiBona) claim that, without open-source software, the Internet as we know it would not exist. As an engineer, he thinks that’s great, but he has a concern: that means that the user base now include politicians.

=> ↺ Google gave the world powerful AI tools, and the world made porn with them

• In 2015, Google announced it would release its internal tool for developing artificial intelligence algorithms, TensorFlow, a move that would change the tone of how AI research and development would be conducted around the world. The means to build technology that could have an impact as profound as electricity, to borrow phrasing from Google’s CEO, would be open, accessible, and free to use. The barrier to entry was lowered from a Ph.D to a laptop.

Events

=> ↺ Where to Stay, Getting Around Prague for oSC18

• Prague is a beautiful city and you can bet that the city will be crowded during the openSUSE Conference. Hotels are already starting to fill up, so it’s best to take a look at the hotels we recommend now before all the hotels are booked out.

• There are six hotels that are recommended, but feel free to book at other hotels in the city. The section for recommended lodging on the openSUSE Conference 2018 webpage gives options for hotels as low as 40 EUR a night to above 120 EUR. Each listing on the section gives a little info about the hotel.

=> ↺ Freedom Embedded: Devices that Respect Users and Communities: LinuxConfAu 2018, Sydney, Australia

• FSF executive director John Sullivan delivered the talk “Freedom Embedded: Devices that Respect Users and Communities” in January 2018, at LinuxConfAu 2018. In this talk, John explains the FSF’s certification program called “Respects Your Freedom” (RYF) that awards a certification mark to hardware meeting a set of free software standards (fsf.org/ryf).

=> ↺ Linux Conference Australia heads to Christchurch in 2019

• Up to 800 delegates from around Australasia and the world will meet in Christchurch for Linux Conference Australia in 2019.

• The 20th anniversary of the annual conference will run from 21-25 January next year at the University of Canterbury, organisers have announced.

• Content will feature up to 100 speakers covering topics such as the Linux kernel, open source hardware and software, open government data and the various communities that have evolved around them.

=> ↺ Major tech conference confirmed for Christchurch

• One of the most respected technical conferences to be held in Australasia is coming to Christchurch.

• Between 500-800 delegates from around Australasia and the world will meet in the city in 2019 for linux.conf.au. It will be the 20th anniversary of the annual conference, which will run from 21-25 January 2019 at the University of Canterbury.

=> ↺ More XEPs for Smack

• I spent the last weekend from Thursday to Sunday in Brussels at the XSF-Summit (here is a very nice post about it by JCBrand) and the FOSDEM. It was really nice to meet all the faces belonging to the JIDs you otherwise only see in the MUCs or on GitHub in real life.

• [...]

• Ge0rG gave a talk about what’s currently wrong with the XMPP protocol. One suggested improvement was to rely more on Stable and Unique Stanza IDs to improve message identification in various use-cases, so I quickly implemented XEP-0359.

Web Browsers

Mozilla

=> ↺ Easy Passwords is now PfP: Pain-free Passwords

• With the important 2.0 milestone I decided to give my Easy Passwords project a more meaningful name. So now it is called PfP: Pain-free Passwords and even has its own website. And that’s the only thing most people will notice, because the most important changes in this release are well-hidden: the crypto powering the extension got an important upgrade. First of all, the PBKDF2 algorithm for generating passwords was dumped in favor of scrypt which is more resistant to brute-force attacks. Also, all metadata written by PfP as well as backups are encrypted now, so that they won’t even leak information about the websites used. Both changes required much consideration and took a while to implement, but now I am way more confident about the crypto than I was back when Easy Passwords 1.0 was released. Finally, there is now an online version compiled from the same source code as the extensions and having mostly the same functionality (yes, usability isn’t really great yet, the user interface wasn’t meant for this use case).

=> ↺ Announcing the Reality Redrawn Challenge Winners!

• I’m delighted to announce the winners of Mozilla’s Reality Redrawn Challenge after my fellow judges and I received entries from around the globe. Since we issued the challenge just two months ago we have been astonished by the quality and imagination behind proposals that use mixed reality and other media to make the power of misinformation and its potential impacts visible and visceral.

• If you have tried to imagine the impact of fake news – even what it smells like – when it touches your world, I hope you will come to experience the Reality Redrawn exhibit at the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose. Our opening night runs from 6-9pm on May 17th and free tickets are available here. Keep an eye on Twitter @mozilla with the hashtag #RealityRedrawn for more details in the coming weeks. After opening night you can experience the exhibit in normal daily museum hours for a limited engagement of two weeks, 10am-5pm. We will be looking to bring the winning entries to life also for those who are not in the Bay Area.

=> ↺ MDN Changelog for January 2018

=> ↺ Mozilla reveals Project Things IoT open-source framework

=> ↺ Mozilla’s new Things Gateway is an open home for your smart devices

=> ↺ Mozilla launches Raspberry Pi-powered ‘Project Things’ to unite smart home kit

=> ↺ Mozilla releases Internet of Things gateway solution

=> ↺ Mozilla’s open gateway project can stop tech giants from controlling IoT ecosystem

=> ↺ Forging Better Tools for the Web

• 2017 was a big year for Firefox DevTools. We updated and refined the UI, refactored three of the panels, squashed countless bugs, and shipped several new features. This work not only provides a faster and better DevTools experience, but lays the groundwork for some exciting new features and improvements for 2018 and beyond. We’re always striving to make tools and features that help developers build websites using the latest technologies and standards, including JavaScript frameworks and, of course, CSS Grid.

=> ↺ This Week In Rust: This Week in Rust 220

=> ↺ L10N Report: February Edition

Databases

=> ↺ Developers Start Getting Excited For MySQL 8.0, Several Talks From FOSDEM

• MySQL 8.0 should presumably appear this year although no public release date has been set. At last weekend’s FOSDEM conference in Brussels were many talks about developers and database administrators eager for MySQL 8.0, well, at least for those not on the MariaDB bandwagon.

Pseudo-Open Source (Openwashing)

=> ↺ Who really contributes to open source

=> ↺ Deutsche Bank open sources more code

• Deutsche Bank has taken a second step in its open source odyssey, making software code publicly available designed to help firms better understand their IT environments.

• [...]

• Waltz is the second major batch of code Deutsche Bank has made public as part of its new commitment to open source. Late last year, over 150,000 lines of code – known as ‘Plexus Interop’ – from its electronic trading platform Autobahn was put into the public domain.

=> ↺ In Digital Health, Open Source Warrants Due Diligence

BSD

=> ↺ LLVM 6.0 RC2 Released, Retpoline Support Still Settling

• The second release candidate of LLVM 6.0 has been tagged.

• Hans Wennborg announced the availability of LLVM 6.0 RC2 a short time ago. He noted in the brief release announcement, “There’s been a lot of merges since rc1, and hopefully the tests are in a better state now.”

Licensing/Legal

=> ↺ Google ignores licence-violating clones of VLC

• Cloned versions of the popular VideoLAN media player, better known as VLC, with ads embedded and in violation of the VLC licence, have been residing on the Google Play Store for a long time with the search company doing nothing about them, it is claimed.

• The website Torrent Freak reported that a clone of VLC, named 321 Media Player, had been downloaded between five and ten million times and earned a 4.5 score from 101,000 reviews.

• A second clone, known as Indian VLC Player, has more than 500,000 downloads.

=> ↺ Google not taking down adware VLC clone for Android

• ideoLAN, the developers of VLC media player, told TorrentFreak it is struggling to get clones of its software removed from Google Play.

• This follows the company recently turning down millions of euros to bundle its software with advertising.

• VLC is an open source application licensed under the GNU General Public License, which means you may use its code as long as you publish any software you develop based on it.

Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

=> ↺ New Open Source Drug Discovery Initiative Takes Aim At “Devastating” Disease

• A consortium including the Drugs for Neglected Disease initiative has launched a groundbreaking open source drug discovery project as way to find new drugs to treat mycetoma, a “devastating disease for which current treatments are ineffective, expensive, and toxic,” the group said.

• According to a paper laying out the “open pharma” drug development concept, “There are many potential advantages of an open source approach, such as improved efficiency, the quality and relevance of the research, and wider participation by the scientific and patient communities; a blend of traditional and innovative financing mechanisms will have to be adopted.”

Open Hardware/Modding

=> ↺ SiFive Launches World’s First Linux-Capable RISC-V Based SoC

• SiFive, the leading provider of commercial RISC-V processor IP, launched the industry’s first Linux-capable RISC-V based processor SoC. The company demonstrated the first real-world use of the HiFive Unleashed board featuring the Freedom U540 SoC, based on its U54-MC Core IP, at the FOSDEM open source developer conference on Saturday.

• During the session, SiFive provided updates on the RISC-V Linux effort, surprising attendees with an announcement that the presentation had been run on the HiFive Unleashed development board. With the availability of the HiFive Unleashed board and Freedom U540 SoC, SiFive has brought to market the first multicore RISC-V chip designed for commercialization, and now offers the industry’s widest array of RISC-V based Core IP.

=> ↺ 3D printing – Downloading the world

• The growth of the World Wide Web has transformed the process of copying digital files from an onerous task requiring the swapping of data carriers (tape-to-tape copying anyone?) to one where digital files are only ever a few commands away or are delivered automatically without user interaction. While this has made life easier in many respects, disruption on this scale also presents challenges. The music industry, for example, has spent millions trying to solve the resulting unauthorised copying issues.

=> ↺ First Linux-Based RISC-V Board Prepares for Take-Off

• It’s been two years since the open source RISC-V architecture emerged from computer labs at UC Berkeley and elsewhere and began appearing in soft-core implementations designed for FPGAs, and over a year since the first commercial silicon arrived. So far, the focus has primarily been on MCU-like processors, but last October, SiFive announced the first Linux-driven RISC-V SoC with its quad-core, 64-bit Freedom U540 (AKA U54-MC Coreplex). A few days ago at FOSDEM, SiFive opened pre-sales for an open source HiFive Unleashed SBC that showcases the U540.

=> ↺ RISC-V Changes For Linux 4.16 Aren’t As Big As Hoped For

• While initial RISC-V support was added to Linux 4.15, it was only the architecture code and not any device drivers. With Linux 4.16, the RISC-V developers admit this time around they didn’t get as many changes in as they were hoping for, but they do have some improvements to land this cycle.

Programming/Development

=> ↺ AmplitudeJS – A Modern Open-Source HTML5 Audio Player

• AmplitudeJS is an open-source cross-platform music player for users of the modern web. It features a beautiful minimalist and intuitive interface across virtually all web browsers.

=> ↺ What’s new in Python 3.7

• Python 3.7, the latest version of the language aimed at making complex tasks simple, has officially entered its beta release phase. The final version of Python 3.7 is due in June 2018, but from this point onward no new features will be added to the Python 3.7 release.

=> ↺ How DevOps helps deliver cool apps to users

Leftovers

=> ↺ France’s new law bans texting in your car even when pulled over

• The ruling came after a 2017 appeal where a driver protested a fine he received for using a phone while he was parked at a roundabout with hazard lights on. Under the new law, those who text in non-approved areas while in a vehicle will receive a fine of 135 euros ($166) and will receive three points on their driving license that will stay for three years. This is the same punishment currently given to those who use their phone while driving. The law does not apply to hands-free devices (but does restrict wireless headsets), and it makes exceptions for emergency calls, like being stranded on the side of the road.

=> ↺ NYPD cops are starting to get their shiny new iPhones for 21st century policing

• Best of all, the new phones are costing the taxpayer dollar zero, as AT&T is rolling them out gratis as upgrades to their old contracts under the Nokia/Lumia/Microsoft system.

• As for the Lumia handsets, they’re not going to waste either. They’re being securely wiped and sold back to Microsoft.

=> ↺ The Franco-Dutch fish fight over electric pulse trawling

• Pim Visser plunges his arm into an aquarium rigged to deliver an electric jolt.

• The demonstration is part of the towering Dutchman’s campaign to convince EU lawmakers about the safety of electric pulse fishing — a technology that uses small shocks to drive fish from the bottom of the sea into nets floating above.

• “It’s just a little tickle,” said Visser, who is the director of Dutch fishing lobby VisNed. “The only purpose of the pulse is to have the sole contract its muscles so that it starts swimming.”

• [...]

• Electric pulse fishing is a method of trawl fishing that uses cables to send weak electric pulses along the seabed. The small shocks causes fish muscles to contract so they jump out of the sand into the fisherman’s nets.

• Fishing with electricity has been banned in the EU since 1998, but in 2007 an exception was made for electric pulse fishing. Countries in the North Sea were allowed to outfit 5 percent of their fleet with the technology in order to test its impact on fish stocks and the ocean ecosystem.

Science

=> ↺ Giant viruses may play an intriguing role in evolution of life on Earth

• We all know viruses cause colds and flu this time of year, but you might be surprised to learn that a virus may have played a key role in the evolution of nearly all life forms on Earth.

• In a new study, a University of Iowa biologist identified a virus family whose set of genes is similar to that of eukaryotes, an organism classification that includes all plants and animals.

• The finding is important because it helps clarify how eukaryotes evolved after branching from prokaryotes some 2 billion years ago.

• “It’s exciting and significant to find a living family of giant viruses with eukaryote-specific genes in a form that predates the latest common ancestor of all eukaryotes,” says Albert Erives, associate professor in the Department of Biology. “These viruses are like time machines that tell us more about how life on our planet came to be.”

=> ↺ First step towards flying cars: Incredible footage shows driverless drone flying people around China

• Ehang, a Chinese drone manufacturer, has recently released an unbelievable video of their new people carrying drone undergoing test flights.

• The company boldly states their Ehang 184 is the first passenger drone in the world and will revolutionize transport in built-up areas.

=> ↺ Geneticists are using laser-powered chips to search through DNA faster

• As Moore’s Law collapses and we reach the limits of what normal processors can do, unconventional techniques—often dismissed in the past as too complex—start looking like feasible ways to bite off niche computing problems and gain speed advantages. A UK startup called Optalysys thinks optical computing, which has failed to live up to its promise for years, could be used to spot similarities in large data sets like genomes (see “Computing with lasers could power up genomics and AI”).

=> ↺ A new DNA test will look for 190 diseases in your newborn’s genetic code

• The $649 test is meant for healthy babies, as a supplement to existing screening tests.

• In the US, the government recommends a newborn screening test that looks for a minimum of 34 disorders (though some states have additional requirements as well). The standard test involves a small sample of blood taken from a baby’s heel.

=> ↺ The first Britons were black, Natural History Museum DNA study reveals

• The earliest Britons were black-skinned, with dark curly hair and possibly blue eyes, new analysis of a 10,000-year-old Somerset skeleton has revealed.

• Scientists at the Natural History Museum have used pioneering genetic sequencing and facial reconstruction techniques to prove that the first hunter-gatherers successfully to inhabit Britain were far darker in complexion than previously thought.

=> ↺ Nissan Embeds Self-Parking Tech in Pillows and Slippers

=> ↺ A newly discovered prime number makes its debut

• On December 26, 2017, J. Pace, G. Woltman, S. Kurowski, A. Blosser, and their co-authors announced the discovery of a new prime number): 2⁷⁷²³²⁹¹⁷-1. It’s an excellent opportunity to take a small tour through the wonderful world of prime numbers to see how this result was achieved and why it is so interesting.

=> ↺ Akili Interactive Announces Trial Results for Video Game Treatment of ADHD

• Akili Interactive recently announced results of a trial on the company’s digital medicine product, AKL-T01. According to FierceBiotech, Akili plans to file AKL-T01 with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for clearance under the 510(k) medical device pathway as a novel treatment for children and adolescents with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

=> ↺ Erasing a Billion Years of Geologic Time Across the Globe

• The Great Unconformity—a huge time gap in the rock record—may have been triggered by the uplift of an ancient supercontinent, say researchers using a novel method for dating rocks.

=> ↺ Cash Comes in for Nanowire Display Startups

• While much of the near-term innovation of future TVs will come from the processing horsepower behind the screen, farther out you can expect a big change in the pixels themselves: micro-LEDs. These displays would be made up of pixels made of miniaturized gallium-nitride LEDs, which are so efficient that displays would consume half or even one-third of the energy used by OLED or LCD displays while being considerably brighter than both.

• Samsung, seemingly at great cost, assembled a huge microLED display for CES that it called “The Wall,” but the technology is likely to make its mark much sooner in small displays for augmented reality and smartwatches. Apple, for example, acquired micro-LED display startup LuxVue in 2014, which reportedly had raised $43-million to that point. MicroLED displays still haven’t appeared in the Apple Watch, though.

Hardware

=> ↺ Google Is Creating Its Own Gaming Console And Game Streaming Service, Says Report

• Back in 2015, Google expanded its presence in the video game market from Android-based Google Play Games to YouTube gaming – a spinoff that streams live and recorded gameplay videos for free.

=> ↺ Lenovo issues global recall of Carbon X1 5th gen to avoid fire risk

• Large multinational technology vendor, Lenovo, has issued a global recall for the 5th generation Lenovo Carbon X1 notebook.

Health/Nutrition

=> ↺ FDA Declares Kratom an Opioid. We’re Here to Explain What It Does.

• But phasing it into Schedule 1 makes it very hard to further conduct research. And this is a new class of endo-alkaloids that act very distinctly different on opioid receptors. And just because the FDA hasn’t received an NDA [New Drug Application] or IND [Investigational New Drug application] to actually conduct a study with mitragynine to move it into a clinical trial, which we know costs . . . millions of dollars, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have value for these 4 or 5 million kratom users, who I feel would have to go back to using prescription opioids or potentially going to street drugs.

=> ↺ Leaked Letter Shows Pressure On Colombia Not To Issue Compulsory Licence For Glivec

• A newly leaked 2016 letter from the CEO of Novartis to the president of Colombia, made available by Swiss group Public Eye, shows the level of concern the Swiss pharmaceutical company had over the effect of possible issuance of a compulsory licence for Novartis drug Glivec in the pivotal South American economy.

=> ↺ Viruses—lots of them—are falling from the sky

• An astonishing number of viruses are circulating around the Earth’s atmosphere – and falling from it – according to new research from scientists in Canada, Spain and the U.S.

• The study marks the first time scientists have quantified the viruses being swept up from the Earth’s surface into the free troposphere, beyond Earth’s weather systems but below the stratosphere where jet airplanes fly. The viruses can be carried thousands of kilometres there before being deposited back onto the Earth’s surface.

=> ↺ Untreatable gonorrhea is on the rise in China

• The sexually transmitted disease gonorrhea is becoming resistant to the only two antibiotics left to treat it — and it’s spreading in China, according to new research.

• Gonorrhea is currently treated using a cocktail of two drugs, azithromycin and ceftriaxone, but the antibiotics are losing their efficacy. In China, almost 19 percent of gonorrhea cases are resistant to azithromycin and almost 11 percent to ceftriaxone, according to a study published today in Plos Medicine. This latest number is what’s most concerning, says Vanessa Allen, chief of medical microbiology at Public Health Ontario, who was not involved in the research.

• “Ceftriaxone is the last drug that we have for the treatment of gonorrhea,” Allen tells The Verge. “We don’t have any replacement drugs after ceftriaxone right now.”

• “CEFTRIAXONE IS THE LAST DRUG THAT WE HAVE FOR THE TREATMENT OF GONORRHEA.”

Security

=> ↺ The worst types of ransomware attacks

=> ↺ All versions’ of Windows vulnerable to tweaked Shadow Broker NSA exploits

• A security researcher has revealed how sophisticated NSA exploits, which were stolen and published online by hacker group Shadow Brokers, can be tweaked to exploit vulnerabilities in all versions of Windows, including Windows 10.

• Back in 2016, the hacker group named Shadow Brokers stole weaponised cyber-tools from the US National Security Agency and published them online, thereby enabling other cyber- criminals to use the tools to attack targeted organisations and to gain access to systems.

=> ↺ Leaked NSA Exploits Modified To Attack Every Windows Version Since 2000

• Probably, the most famous of the NSA tools leaked by the hacker group Shadow Brokers was EnternalBlue which gave birth to dangerous malware like WannaCry, Petya, and more recently, the cryptojacking malware WannaMine.

• Now, Sean Dillion, a security researcher at RiskSense, has modified the source code of three other leaked NSA tools called EnternalRomance, EternalChampion, and EnternalSynergy. In the past, he also ported the EternalBlue exploit to work on Windows 10.

=> ↺ WiFi Routers Riddled With Holes: Report

• Insignary, a startup security firm based in South Korea, conducted comprehensive binary code scans for known security vulnerabilities in WiFi routers. The company conducted scans across a spectrum of the firmware used by the most popular home, small and mid-sized business and enterprise-class WiFi routers.

=> ↺ As data protection laws strengthen open-source software governance becomes critical

• The cadence of delivery isn’t hampered by new layers of governance (as using automated security audits allows for real-time testing as new code is developed). And with accurate audit trails, organisations can prove the extent to which they have gone, to ensure secure code that culminates in safe and compliant applications.

=> ↺ Episode 81 – Autosploit, bug bounties, and the future of security

=> ↺ Bad Influence: How A Marketing Startup Exposed Thousands of Social Media Stars

=> ↺ More Than 12,000 Influencers, Brands Targeted in Latest Data Breach

• It happened to Target, Forever 21, Neiman Marcus, TJX Companies, and Yahoo. Their systems were infiltrated by hackers and the data that they had stored, including consumers’ names, addresses, payment information, and in some cases, social security numbers, were stolen. Now, influencers and high-end beauty and fashion brands, are the target, as Octoly, a Paris-based influencer agency, has confirmed that it has experienced a data breach, putting more than 12,000 prominent social media influencers from YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter at risk.

=> ↺ 12,000 Influencers Had Their Data Leaked by Marketing Firm Octoly

• Unfortunately, that is just what happened last month to around 12,000 social media stars who work with Paris-based influencer marketplace Octoly. According to cyber risk company UpGuard, carelessness on the part of Octoly led to influencers’ personal information — like street addresses, phone numbers, birth dates, email addresses and more — becoming accessible in a public database.

=> ↺ Security updates for Wednesday

=> ↺ 6 Easy Ways To Block Cryptocurrency Mining In Your Web Browser

• Cryptocurrencies are digital or virtual currencies that make use of encryption for security. As they are anonymous and decentralized in nature, one can use them for making payments that can’t be tracked by governments.

=> ↺ The effect of Meltdown and Spectre in our communities

• A late-breaking development in the computing world led to a somewhat hastily arranged panel discussion at this year’s linux.conf.au in Sydney. The embargo for the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities broke on January 4; three weeks later, Jonathan Corbet convened representatives from five separate parts of our community, from cloud to kernel to the BSDs and beyond. As Corbet noted in the opening, the panel itself was organized much like the response to the vulnerabilities themselves, which is why it didn’t even make it onto the conference schedule until a few hours earlier. Introductions

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ Pentagon: Afghan war costing US $45 billion per year

• The costs now are still significantly lower than during the high point of the war in Afghanistan. From 2010 to 2012, when the U.S. had as many as 100,000 soldiers in the country, the price for American taxpayers surpassed $100 billion each year. There are currently around 16,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

=> ↺ India, Pakistan moving towards war-like situation: Farooq Abdullah

• Abdullah, along with several other leaders in Jammu and Kashmir, has often claimed that dialogue between both India and Pakistan is the only way forward.

=> ↺ Turkey Detains 449 People For Criticizing Invasion Of Syria On Social Media

• As Turkey’s invasion of northern Syria continues, so too does their policy of arresting anyone seen as even sort of opposed to the attack.

=> ↺ If There’s a War in Korea, Blame Trump

• Brainwashed Americans believe that Kim Jong-un is responsible for the confrontation between Pyongyang and Washington, but nothing could be further from the truth. The real problem is not Kim’s nuclear weapons but Washington’s 65 year-long military occupation that continues to reinforce a political solution that was arbitrarily imposed on a sovereign nation in order to split the country in two, install a puppet regime in the south, establish a permanent military presence to defend US commercial interests, and maintain control of a strategically-located territory that is a critical part of Washington’s plan to encircle Russia and China to remain the dominant global power throughout the century. Simply put, Washington is 100 percent responsible for the current confrontation just as it has been responsible for every flare-up for the last 7 decades.

• Even so, fighting back against the relentless outpouring of US-backed state propaganda is no easy task. So allow me to defend the position of the DPRK with just one, brief analogy that will help to put things into perspective:

• Imagine if the Korean army decided to deploy tens of thousands of combat troops to fight on the side of the South during the Civil War. And let’s say, that these forces were so successful that they were able to kill 3 million Americans while reducing every business and factory, every home and hospital, every church and university, to smoldering rubble. As a result of Korean meddling, the North was unable to win the war, but was forced to settle for an armistice that permanently split the US into North and South allowing Korea to install its stooges in the capitol of Richmond while it established military bases in every southern state from Virginia to Louisiana.

=> ↺ Pentagon planning grand military parade for Trump

• President Trump has asked the Pentagon to explore holding “a celebration” for Americans to show their appreciation for the armed forces, the White House said, amid reports that military leaders have begun planning a military parade at his request.

• Trump repeatedly has expressed an interest in holding a display of America’s military might and upped his calls for a parade after witnessing the Bastille Day celebrations on a trip to France last summer.

• The Washington Post reported Tuesday that at a recent meeting between Trump and top military officials, Trump’s wishes were “suddenly heard as a presidential directive.”

=> ↺ No Time for Complacency over Korea War Threat

• Like the proverbial calm before the storm, war scares on the Korean peninsula have temporarily gone quiet while its two governments make nice over the 2018 Winter Olympics. But when the games end, count on the Trump administration reviving its ultimatum to North Korea: Stop all nuclear and missile testing and begin to denuclearize, or face a devastating, preemptive attack.

=> ↺ New German Warship Fails Sea Trials Due to Tech Woes

• Reducing the size of a combat ship’s complement through advanced automation has been a goal of the world’s navies for decades [pdf]. However, as the U.S. Navy has already discovered, the German Navy is now finding out that this is easier desired than done.

• In December, the German Navy refused to commission the lead ship of its new Baden-Wurttemberg class Type 125 (F125) frigate after it failed its latest at-sea trials. This was the first time that Germany’s navy has ever refused to commission a ship after delivery. The refusal was due in part to unresolved hardware and software integration problems affecting the Baden-Wurttemberg’s ATLAS Naval Combat System [pdf] and other ship systems, which have plagued the frigate’s sea trials since it entered them in April 2016.

=> ↺ A Treacherous Crossing

• Paul Ryan’s recent trip to the Gulf reiterated the U.S. government’s support of the Saudi-led assault on Yemen and a bellicose stance towards Iran, which has created a watershed of human suffering, writes Kathy Kelly.

=> ↺ Who is Containing Whom?

• Over the years “containment” has been a key U.S. political instrument by which it has sought to isolate, starve out, or excommunicate from the “international community” regimes unwilling to accept the U.S.-dominated world order.

=> ↺ Syria’s White Helmets Go Global

Transparency/Investigative Reporting

=> ↺ London Judge Rules to Uphold Assange’s Arrest Warrant

• In London, a judge ruled today to uphold the British arrest warrant for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has been holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for more than five years.

=> ↺ British judge upholds arrest warrant for Julian Assange

• He also cited a U.N. report in support of Assange.

• Arbuthnot said she would rule on those arguments Feb. 13.

=> ↺ Assange Trial: Attempt to Silence Whistleblowers ‘Detrimental’ – Lawyer

• The Westminster Magistrates Court has decided against lifting the arrest warrant against Julian Assange. After five years in the Ecuadorian embassy, and numerous health problems looming, Assange and his supporters were rooting for the warrant to be dropped. Sputnik spoke with Toby Cadman, specialist in international law, about the court’s ruling.

=> ↺ Arrest imminent for WikiLeaks founder Assange?

• But she said she would rule separately on another application from Assange’s lawyers asking her to consider whether it would be in the “public interest” to keep the warrant in place.

=> ↺ Wikileaks founder Assange loses bid to have UK arrest warrant dropped

• Assange has said he feared Sweden would hand him over to the United States to face prosecution over WikiLeaks’ publication of a large trove of classified military and diplomatic documents – one of the largest information leaks in U.S. history.

=> ↺ British court quashes WikiLeaks founder’s bid to cancel arrest warrant

• The investigation was later dropped, but Assange had refused to leave the embassy fearing his arrest.

=> ↺ UK Court Confirms Arrest Warrant Issued against Wikileaks Founder

=> ↺ Assange loses initial bid to overturn UK arrest warrant

=> ↺ Ecuador assures continued asylum to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in its London embassy

=> ↺ WikiLeaks founder Assange loses latest legal bid to quash British arrest warrant

=> ↺ UK court upholds Julian Assange arrest warrant

=> ↺ Pamela Anderson visits Julian Assange at Ecuadorian embassy day after judge rules arrest warrant remains valid

=> ↺ Pamela Anderson again visits Assange

=> ↺ Wikileaks Reveals All the Journalists Who Schmoozed With Clinton Campaign

=> ↺ UK court upholds Assange arrest warrant

=> ↺ Assange fights on after arrest warrant stands

• Julian Assange has vowed to continue a legal fight against a UK arrest warrant after a judge ruled it was still valid.

• Senior District Judge Emma Arbuthnot rejected his legal team’s argument the warrant issued in 2012 was no longer valid because an investigation by the Swedish authorities into a sex-related allegation had been dropped.

=> ↺ Judge upholds arrest warrant for Julian Assange

• So the saga continues, even if the judge rules in his favour next week, Assange will not leave the Embassy until he’s certain he won’t be arrested and bundled off to the US.

=> ↺ Embassy breached? Julian Assange delivered MYSTERIOUS ‘white powder’ with threatening note

• WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange has been in the embassy for the past five-and-a-half years, fearing he will be extradited to the US to face trial for publication of classified American military and diplomatic documents in 2010.

• A dubious package with a “threat” addressed to Mr Assange arrived the same day Judge Emma Arbuthnot rejected a bid by Assange to drop a warrant against him for breaching bail conditions.

=> ↺ Classified Cabinet Docs Leak Down Under Via An Actual Cabinet Sale… Just As Aussies Try To Outlaw Leaking

• Back in December, we reported on an effort underway in Australia to criminalize both whistleblowers and journalists who publish classified documents with up to 20 years in prison. 20 years, by the way, is also the amount of time that Cabinet documents are supposed to be kept classified in Australia. But just recently Australia’s ABC news suddenly started breaking a bunch of news that appeared to come from access to Cabinet documents that were still supposed to be classified. This included stories around ending welfare benefits for anyone under 30 years old as well as delaying background checks on refugees. Some explosive stuff.

=> ↺ What is the place for one-on-one communication in open-source?

• One of Red Hat’s mantras is “develop in the open”. There is an entire website, opensource.com, with tons of articles about this idea (this article in particular is great).

• One aspect of “develop in the open” means keeping conversations as public as possible. Don’t email or IM a developer directly; instead, email a development mailing list (possibly using the To: and CC: fields for your intended developer) or public IRC channel instead. It’s hard to overstate the community benefits of this, and again opensource.com explains the benefits in more detail than you could ever want.

=> ↺ Suspicious package delivered to Ecuador’s embassy where Julian Assange is staying

• A suspicious package was sent to Ecuador’s embassy in London on Tuesday, local authorities in the UK said. The embassy is home to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is living there as he evades a warrant for his arrest on breach of bail charges.

=> ↺ Wikileaks: What is next for Julian Assange?

• Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for almost six years, and there is no clear end to the saga after a court said a warrant for his arrest still stands.

• Westminster Magistrates’ court upheld the UK arrest warrant, saying despite the fact that rape and sexual assault charges Mr Assange was originally wanted for in Sweden had now been dropped, he was still wanted for refusing to surrender to bail “without reasonable cause”, which is a criminal offence.

=> ↺ ‘You Have to Have Journalists Who Are Committed to Getting at the Truth’

• Janine Jackson: When Robert Parry worked at Newsweek, after breaking his first big stories with the Associated Press, he was once told that a story on financial skulduggery by the Contras had to be watered down, because Newsweek owner Katharine Graham was having Henry Kissinger as a weekend guest. It was that sort of thing that led Parry to leave corporate media, but, as Seymour Hersh was quoted in The Nation, Parry didn’t hate media; just lousy journalism. Robert Parry spoke with CounterSpin‘s Steve Rendall in November of 2007. More than 10 years old, this interview’s relevance is undimmed. Here’s Steve Rendall:

• Steve Rendall: How bad journalism harms, and how good journalism can make things better, and what role media have played in bringing the United States to its current state of affairs, are basic questions addressed in “Why We Write,” an essay published by ConsortiumNews.com on November 13, and written by the site’s founder, Robert Parry.

Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

=> ↺ Reduced energy from the sun might occur by mid-century—now, scientists know by how much

• The sun might emit less radiation by mid-century, giving planet Earth a chance to warm a bit more slowly but not halt the trend of human-induced climate change.

=> ↺ Coal Lobbyist Hosted Fundraisers for Senators Evaluating His Nomination for Top EPA Post

• While waiting for a nomination to the Environmental Protection Agency, Andrew Wheeler, a coal lobbyist, cozied up with the senators who would decide upon his appointment in the most direct way possible: giving them money.

• Wheeler, who was first rumored to be tapped for the EPA last March, raised funds for Republican senators on the committee that makes the preliminary decision on confirming appointments to the agency.

• Fundraising documents obtained by The Intercept and the watchdog group Documented show that Wheeler hosted campaign fundraisers for two members of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works — Sens. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., and Jim Inhofe, R-Okla. — last May. The event for Inhofe was held at Rosa Mexicano, a Mexican restaurant in downtown Washington, D.C., and the event for Barrasso took place at Wheeler’s office on K Street in the capital. Federal Election Committee records show both senators received donations of Wheeler’s law firm PAC last year. Barrasso received $2,500 and Inhofe’s leadership PAC received $1,000.

=> ↺ How nuclear weapons research revealed new climate threats

• After atmospheric scientist Ivana Cvijanovic began pushing a computerized climate simulation to its limits, she noticed a disturbing result: as Arctic sea ice nearly disappeared, massive high-pressure systems built up thousands of miles away, off the west coast of the United States.

• The atmospheric ridge blocked major storms bound for California, cutting off rainfall. Cvijanovic’s model shows that as the North Pole’s summer sea ice vanishes, as expected in the next few decades, it could turn down the tap for Central Valley farmers, Sierra Nevada ski resorts, and cities throughout the nation’s most populous state (see “The Year Climate Change Began to Spin Out of Control”).

=> ↺ This new company wants to sequence your genome and let you share it on a blockchain

• Cryptocurrency in exchange for your genetic data! Sounds a bit like a scam, but it’s the premise behind a new company founded by a leading geneticist. Nebula Genomics says it plans to sequence your genome for under $1,000, give you insights about it, secure it using a blockchain, and allow you to do whatever you want with the data.

• Nebula is the brainchild of PhD student Dennis Grishin, graduate Kamal Obbad, and geneticist George Church, all from Harvard. Mirza Cifric, CEO of Veritas Genetics, which offers a genome-sequencing service for $999, is a founding advisor.

Finance

=> ↺ Mike Pence hints at possible US return to TPP in talks with Japan DPM Aso: Kyodo

• US Vice-President Mike Pence referred to the possibility of the United States returning to the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade deal when he met Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso on Wednesday (Feb 7), a Japanese government source said, reported Kyodo News.

=> ↺ Move aside Uber, London cabbies have it all mapped out in driver battles

• Pearson’s goal is to drive one of London’s 21,000 iconic black cabs. But first he has to memorize nearly every street and landmark in London as part of a process called the Knowledge. Put in place in 1865, the Knowledge exam requires cabbies to navigate between any two points in central London without following a map or GPS. It can take four years to learn the information and pass a series of stringent oral tests.

=> ↺ A Serious Push for Free College in California

• Up until the 1970s, public higher education in California was virtually free. Hundreds of thousands of baby boomers benefitted from this opportunity, attending college for modest fees. These graduates went on to get jobs, purchase homes, save money, build wealth, raise families, pay taxes, and propel their lives forward without the crucible of huge amounts of college debt.

=> ↺ More Thoughts on the Stock Crash

• Before anyone starts jumping off buildings, let me give you a few items to think about.

• 1. The stock market is not the economy. It moves in mysterious ways that often have little or nothing to do with the economy. In October of 1987, it plunged more than 20 percent in a single day. GDP grew 4.2 percent in 1988 and 3.7 percent in 1989. The market did recover much of its value over this period, but we don’t know whether or not it will recover the ground lost in the last week either.

• 2. The market has gone through an enormous run-up over the last nine years. The current level is more than 230 percent above its 2009 lows. That translates into an average nominal return of more than 14.0 percent annually, before taking into account dividends.

=> ↺ The Conservatives have turned universal suffrage into a contest for manipulation. Here’s what we must do.

• The UK Government has announced that it will celebrate the centenary of the 1918 Representation of the People Act by establishing a National Democracy Week. Yet Conservative-led governments have, since 2010, repeatedly undermined democracy. For example, after the Electoral Commission warned the government in 2014 against being too hasty in bringing in a new untested voter registration system, they not only ignored the advice, but instead accelerated the process, and consequently, almost 2 million people dropped off the electoral register – comprising mainly those who were among the most disempowered in society, such as students, the poor and minority ethnic groups in inner cities. Furthermore, when the Electoral Commission advised all parties to abide by the agreed limits on spending on election campaign, the Conservative government changed the law and increased the limit by 23%, so it could outspend other parties in the 2015 elections. But their spending still ended up exceeding the raised limits. And they are not likely to be deterred from doing it again since they were fined a paltry £70,000 by the Electoral Commission for their transgression.

=> ↺ Chevrolet Sold One (1) New Car In The United Kingdom Last Month

• The increase of one (1) sale last month called to mind that hilarious story a few years back, when Chevrolet spent $600 million in a sponsorship deal for the English soccer team Manchester United.

=> ↺ US startups don’t want to go public anymore. That’s bad news for Americans

• Going public was once a sign of a young startup’s promise. But these days, a growing number of young companies are avoiding IPOs altogether. In 1997, the average age of US-listed firms was a sprightly 12 years old. Now the average age is 20. US public companies have also gotten bigger. Between 1975 and 1991, around half of listed companies had a market capital of less than $100 million (in 2015 dollars)—compared with 22% in 2016.

=> ↺ NYC Taxi Driver Kills Himself at City Hall after Condemning Uber & Politicians for Financial Ruin

• New York City taxi drivers held a vigil on Tuesday to honor livery car driver Douglas Schifter, who killed himself in front of City Hall Monday morning after writing a long Facebook post condemning local politicians and Wall Street-backed apps like Uber for pushing him into financial ruin. He wrote, “I worked 100-120 consecutive hours almost every week for the past fourteen plus years. When the industry started in 1981, I averaged 40-50 hours. I cannot survive any longer with working 120 hours! I am not a Slave and I refuse to be one. … There seems to be a strong bias by the Mayor and Governor in favor of Uber. A Company that is a known liar, cheat and thief.” Over the past five years, the number of for-hire cars has more than doubled in the city, largely thanks to Uber. But the soaring number of cars has resulted in a financial crisis for many longtime taxi drivers who now struggle to get customers. We speak to Bhairavi Desai, executive director and co-founder of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, which represents over 19,000 taxi drivers in New York City.

=> ↺ Judge Koh sets aside sanctions order against Apple in FTC v. Qualcomm antitrust case

• Judge Lucy Koh of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California has granted an Apple motion for relief from a non-dispositive order by Magistrate Judge Nathaniel Cousins, who imposed sanctions on Apple for failure to timely provide documents sought by Qualcomm in its defense against the Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust lawsuit.

• [...]

• Apple is indeed a party to other Qualcomm cases. For example, the Munich I Regional Court will hold a Qualcomm v. Apple patent infringement hearing–not yet a trial, but a discussion of key outcome-determinative issues–in a few hours. Presiding Judge Dr. Matthias Zigann, one of Germany’s leading patent judges, will hear the parties’ arguments, with Qualcomm claiming that Apple’s iPhones using Intel chips (at least that’s what Qualcomm’s public statements and its litigation strategy for the United States International Trade Commission indicate) infringe European Patent EP2724461 on a low-voltage power-efficient envelope tracker. This is just one of various cases pending in Germany. The Mannheim Regional Court informed me of hearings scheduled for June, September, and October, over three different European patents–and it’s unclear whether today’s patent-in-suit is the only one Qualcomm is asserting in Munich (Qualcomm originally announced one Mannheim lawsuit and now I’m aware of three).

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ Pollster hired to track Mark Zuckerberg’s popularity couldn’t stand it and left Facebook

• “It’s a bit like a political campaign,” said former pollster Tavis McGinn.

=> ↺ Facebook deletes claims it helped influence 2015 general election for Scottish National Party

• The social media giant has deleted half a dozen posts from a page promoting “success stories” on Facebook’s electioneering to clients, including a page called “Triggering a landslide” claiming Facebook helped the SNP secure a near total victory in Scotland during the election.

=> ↺ Facebook hired a full-time pollster to monitor Zuckerberg’s approval ratings

• McGinn tracked a wide range of questions related to Zuckerberg’s public perception. “Not just him in the abstract, but do people like Mark’s speeches? Do they like his interviews with the press? Do people like his posts on Facebook? It’s a bit like a political campaign, in the sense that you’re constantly measuring how every piece of communication lands. If Mark’s doing a barbecue in his backyard and he hops on Facebook Live, how do people respond to that?”

• [...]

• “Facebook is Mark, and Mark is Facebook,” McGinn says. “Mark has 60 percent voting rights for Facebook. So you have one individual, 33 years old, who has basically full control of the experience of 2 billion people around the world. That’s unprecedented. Even the president of the United States has checks and balances. At Facebook, it’s really this one person.”

• McGinn declined to discuss the results of his polling at Facebook, saying nondisclosure agreements prevented him from doing so. But he said he decided to leave the company after only six months after coming to believe that Facebook had a negative effect on the world.

=> ↺ Fake news sharing in US is a rightwing thing, says study

• Low-quality, extremist, sensationalist and conspiratorial news published in the US was overwhelmingly consumed and shared by rightwing social network users, according to a new study from the University of Oxford.

• The study, from the university’s “computational propaganda project”, looked at the most significant sources of “junk news” shared in the three months leading up to Donald Trump’s first State of the Union address this January, and tried to find out who was sharing them and why.

=> ↺ Media’s State of the Union: Normalizing Lies and Hoping for Compromise

• President Donald Trump’s first State of the Union address did not disappoint those who expected it to contain the same bombast, exaggeration and outright lies that have characterized his rhetoric since he announced he was running for president in June 2015. While media factchecking projects should be taken with a hefty grain of salt, leading papers have amassed lengthy compendiums of Trump’s lies: The New York Times documented a “public lie or falsehood” on every one of Trump’s first 40 days in office, while the Washington Post counted 2,140 “false or misleading claims” in his entire first year.

• But corporate media continue to grant Trump the same automatic legitimacy granted to past presidents whenever he reads the words of a professional speechwriter off a teleprompter, rather than tweeting or yelling whatever thoughts pop into his head. The response from top newspapers to his State of the Union address illustrate how the lies and false narratives perpetuated by Trump and his administration continue to be normalized.

• In their lead story for the Washington Post (1/30/18), “Trump Calls for Unity, Pushes GOP Agenda in State of the Union Speech,” Karen Tumulty and Philip Rucker described “the conciliatory tone of Trump’s first State of the Union address,” contrasting it with “the combative manner in which he has conducted his presidency”—though allowing that the speech also included “polarizing language when lamenting crime from MS-13 and other gangs, which he blamed on ‘open borders.’”

=> ↺ ‘Violence’ Becomes ‘Unruliness’ When It’s Sports Fans, Not BLM Protesters, Breaking Rules

• After the Philadelphia Eagles mounted an exciting and improbable underdog victory over the New England Patriots on Super Bowl Sunday, Philly fans poured into the city’s streets to celebrate. Fires were set, some stores were broken into, and drunk people fought and caroused across the city. Crowds of (overwhelmingly) white male fans climbed poles, leapt off of building awnings, uprooted lamp posts and generally caused mayhem and havoc across the City of Brotherly Love. The celebration ended Monday morning with only four arrests, and with what NBC Sports (2/5/18) described vaguely as “vandalism and injuries.”

=> ↺ If Anti-Immigrant Wish List Not Accepted, Trump Says, ‘I’d Love to See a Shutdown’

• President Donald Trump—who has repeatedly wailed about how “devastating” a government shutdown would be to “our military” and federal employees—said during an immigration roundtable on Tuesday that he would “love to see a shutdown” if Democrats refuse to accept his expansive anti-immigrant wish list.

=> ↺ Glad you talked about corruption, now walk the talk, Siddaramaiah tweets to PM Modi

• Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah seems to be taking a leaf out of his party chief Rahul Gandhi’s book. For the third day in a row, Siddaramaiah, who is facing an assembly election this year, tweeted directly to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Siddaramaiah launched a subtle attack, targeting Prime Minister Modi for comments he made during an election rally in Karnataka over the weekend. “I am glad PM @narendramodi is talking about corruption,” Siddaramaiah began his tweet today, referring to the PM tearing into the Congress government on Sunday by accusing it of setting “new records” in corruption.

=> ↺ Maldives’ former President Nasheed seeks Indian military intervention in crisis-ridden country

• Exiled former President of the Maldives Mohamed Nasheed on Tuesday sought India’s military intervention in the country to release dissidents in prison.

• However, three Supreme Court judges annulled a portion of the order that set off a crisis in the Maldives, revoking the earlier order for releasing the nine Opposition leaders including Mr. Nasheed, who is currently in Colombo.

• The development comes on the day that the Chief Justice and a Supreme Court judge were arrested, after troops stormed the Supreme Court in the wee hours. It follows President Abdulla Yameen’s declaration of a state of emergency on Monday.

=> ↺ Introducing ‘Trump, Inc.,’ a Podcast on the Many Mysteries of Our President’s Businesses

• A couple of months ago, a few of us from ProPublica and WNYC sat together in a conference room and started scribbling on a whiteboard. We were brainstorming all the possible paths to investigate around President Donald Trump and his family businesses.

• It looked like Carrie Mathison’s wall. There’s so much that’s still unknown. We don’t know if the president is taking money from his businesses, or what deals are happening, or who his partners are, who’s providing the financing. It goes on and on.

=> ↺ Coming From ProPublica and WNYC: ‘Trump, Inc.,’ the Podcast

=> ↺ ProPublica and WNYC Studios Announce ‘Trump, Inc.’ Podcast Series

• Today, WNYC and ProPublica announced a new partnership and reporting project. “Trump, Inc.,” a 12-episode podcast series, will dig deeply into the central questions surrounding the business dealings of President Donald Trump and his family, including how his role as President may be working to his financial benefit.

• A year after his election, basic yet vital questions about President Trump and his family’s business empire remain unanswered: Who are their partners? Is the business benefiting from its close relationship with the Trump administration? What deals are happening? Who’s financing them? And most fundamentally — is Trump acting on behalf of his country, or his company?

=> ↺ Outlets in Eight Countries Are Using Our Tool to Monitor Political Ads on Facebook

• As the Australian government was conducting a national mail-in survey to gauge support for legislation legalizing same-sex marriage this fall, ads appeared on Facebook trying to sway specific groups of voters.

• Opponents of gay marriage targeted people who, based on pages they liked and posts they had clicked on, were interested in “prayer” and “Christianity.” It is “a child’s right to be raised and loved by their married mother and father,” one video ad said. An advertiser who favors same-sex marriage pitched other users for whom “family” was a priority, contending that the legislation would help children “grow more securely, in less fear of the possibility that they could be different from others.”

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ The new puritans waging war on art

• But this incident isn’t simply a matter of bad judgement on the part of MAG’s curators. After all, this was not an isolated example of censorship in the arts. Feminist and anti-racist campaigners are increasingly targeting the arts to further their causes, and arts institutions are capitulating to their demands – or, even worse, pre-empting them by engaging in self-censorship.

=> ↺ Moderation Is The Commodity

• Content moderation is such a complex and laborious undertaking that, all things considered, it’s amazing that it works at all, and as well as it does. Moderation is hard. This should be obvious, but it is easily forgotten. It is resource intensive and relentless; it requires making difficult and often untenable distinctions; it is wholly unclear what the standards should be, especially on a global scale; and one failure can incur enough public outrage to overshadow a million quiet successes. And we are partly to blame for having put platforms in this untenable situation, by asking way too much of them. We sometimes decry the intrusion of platform moderation, and sometimes decry its absence. Users probably should not expect platforms to be hands-off and expect them to solve problems perfectly and expect them to get with the times and expect them to be impartial and automatic.

• Even so, as a society we have once again handed over to private companies the power to set and enforce the boundaries of appropriate public speech for us. That is an enormous cultural power, held by a few deeply invested stakeholders, and it is being done behind closed doors, making it difficult for anyone else to inspect or challenge. Platforms frequently, and conspicuously, fail to live up to our expectations—in fact, given the enormity of the undertaking, most platforms’ own definition of success includes failing users on a regular basis.

• The companies that have profited most from our commitment to platforms have done so by selling back to us the promises of the web and participatory culture. But as those promises have begun to sour, and the reality of their impact on public life has become more obvious and more complicated, these companies are now grappling with how best to be stewards of public culture, a responsibility that was not evident to them at the start.

=> ↺ New Stages play in Peterborough examines censorship

• The slippery slope of censorship and where, or even if, a line can be drawn will be in focus during the next instalment of New Stages Theatre Company’s Page on Stage reading series, which returns to Market Hall Performing Arts Centre on Sunday.

• The topic couldn’t be any more relevant to the current social and political climate because of the ultra-conservative factions that exist both in Canada and south of the border, New Stages artistic director Randy Read pointed out.

• Written by Beverley Cooper and based on an idea by Read, the play If Truth Be Told – which premiered at the Blythe Festival – was inspired by events that happened in Peterborough in 1976.

=> ↺ “Emperor of Hell” neutralized by censorship: producer

• “The screenplay was revised 27 times to get the approval of cultural officials and everybody tried to prevent the film from being made,” Khazaei said in a press conference on Tuesday after a screening of the movie during the 36th Fajr Film Festival.

• Directed by Parviz Sheikhtadi, “Emperor of Hell” was scheduled to have its premiere at the festival in 2017, but the organizers refused to screen it in the official competition. Therefore, Sheikhtadi and Khazaei withdrew the film from the festival.

=> ↺ Royal Court commits to staging Tibet play following censorship claims

• The Royal Court Theatre in London has vowed that it will stage a play about Tibet that has been at the heart of a censorship row.

• Indian playwright Abhishek Majumdar’s work Pah-la, which draws on personal stories of Tibetans he worked with in India, was initially due to run at the Royal Court in October 2017.

• However, the play was delayed, which Majumdar claimed was due to pressure from British Council in China, and then subsequently withdrawn in January 2018 due to what the theatre has now claimed was down to “financial reasons”.

• [...]

• Majumdar added that the play was facing censorship “over and over again from one of the premiere theatres in the world and of course the Chinese government even before it has opened”.

• A spokeswoman for the Royal Court said: “The Royal Court Theatre apologises to the Tibetan community for having had to postpone and subsequently withdraw Pah-la for financial reasons earlier this year.

=> ↺ The Guardian view on Hylas and the Nymphs: not censorship

• As a stimulus for debate, last week’s removal of John William Waterhouse’s Hylas and the Nymphs from the walls of the Manchester Art Gallery certainly did the trick. After its exile to the museum store hit the news, the air became thick with protest and cries of “censorship”. Its banishment was regarded as dangerous political correctness, and the thin end of the wedge. If Waterhouse’s image of a youth surrounded by naked young women was to be taken down, where would it end? Would all our museums and galleries be dismantled, their “offensive” works, aka most Old Masters, locked away from the gaze of the public?

• The painting’s week-long absence (it is back in its place by popular demand) probably focused more attention and thought upon it than it would have received over six months on the wall. Its removal was part of a project by artist Sonia Boyce, an exhibition of whose work opens at the museum in March. The action had arisen from discussions between the artist and staff about power and taste, about who decides what is seen and not seen on the walls of museums and galleries.

=> ↺ For an International Coalition to Fight Internet Censorship

• The United States government, in the closest collaboration with Google, Facebook, Twitter and other powerful information technology corporations, is implementing massive restrictions on Internet access to socialist, antiwar and progressive websites. Similar repressive policies are being enacted by capitalist governments in Europe and throughout the world.

• The new regime of censorship is being combined with an intensification of surveillance operations, aimed at monitoring what people read, write and think while on the Internet. The actions of this alliance of the state, military-intelligence agencies and oligopolistic technology corporations are a dangerous threat to freedom of speech and other core democratic rights.

=> ↺ NCAC Opposes Removal of To Kill A Mockingbird and Huckleberry Finn from Minnesota Classrooms

• While it is understandable that a novel that repeatedly uses a highly offensive racial slur would generate discomfort among some parents and students, the problems of living in a society where racial tensions persist will not be resolved by banishing literary classics from the classroom. On the contrary, the classroom is where the history, use and destructiveness of this language should be examined and discussed. It is there that the books’ complexities can be contextualized and their anti-racist message can be understood. Rather than ignore difficult speech, educators should create spaces for open dialogue that teaches students to confront the vestiges of racism and the oppression people of color.

=> ↺ Anti-censorship group urges reversal of Duluth school district’s decision on ‘Mockingbird,’ ‘Finn’

=> ↺ Facebook on Trial in France for Allegedly Censoring Courbet’s “Origin of the World”

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ Facebook’s app for kids should freak parents out

• That’s what the world’s largest social network is asking parents with the release of its first app for children, Messenger Kids. It’s a pint-size version of Facebook’s chat app, Messenger (which, like Facebook itself, is intended only for those 13 and older). With Messenger Kids, Facebook becomes the first of the major social networks to put out an app specifically for children under 13.

• The move makes sense in some ways. Chat apps are everywhere, so why keep them out of the hands of children? It could even help parents teach them about online etiquette.

• And it’s a no-brainer for Facebook, whose teenage users are becoming increasingly enamored of competing apps like Snapchat, Twitter, and Kik. With Messenger Kids, perhaps, Facebook can hook younger children on its brand.

=> ↺ Macau’s Cybersecurity Law: Less About Security, More About Surveillance (And Censorship)

• Macau, a former Portuguese colony and a special administrative region on the south coast of China, has begun public consultations on a proposed Cybersecurity Law.

• The Macau government is proposing the legislation in an effort to ensure the “security of network communications.” The law would establish a local cybersecurity standing committee and a cybersecurity center which would monitor online information flows in binary code to keep track of and investigate future cyber attacks. The center would coordinate with government departments to supervise and implement protection procedures for companies in 11 crucial sectors, including internet operators, media organizations, water and energy suppliers, financial and banking companies, gambling companies and medical institutions, among others.

=> ↺ Newly Released Surveillance Orders Show That Even with Individualized Court Oversight, Spying Powers Are Misused

• Once-secret surveillance court orders obtained by EFF last week show that even when the court authorizes the government to spy on specific Americans for national security purposes, that authorization can be misused to potentially violate other people’s civil liberties.

• These documents raise larger questions about whether the government can meaningfully protect people’s privacy and free expression rights under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which permits officials to engage in warrantless mass surveillance with far less court oversight than is required under the “traditional” FISA warrant process.

• The documents are the third and final batch of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) opinions released to EFF as part of a FOIA lawsuit seeking all significant orders and opinions of the secret court. Previously, the government released opinions dealing with FISA’s business records and pen register provisions, along with opinions under Section 702.

=> ↺ Abbas’ government sued over alleged CIA-backed wiretapping

• A former Palestinian intelligence chief and the head of the West Bank bar association are suing the Palestinian self-rule government after a purported whistleblower alleged the two were targeted, along with many other allies and rivals of President Mahmoud Abbas, in a large-scale CIA-backed wiretapping operation.

• Allegations of continued intelligence-sharing with the United States could prove embarrassing for Abbas who has been on a political collision course with Washington since President Donald Trump’s recognition in December of contested city of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

=> ↺ Canadian Privacy Commissioner Report Says Existing Law Already Gives Canadians A Right To Be Forgotten

• In other words, the Commissioner is looking to import Europe’s right-to-be-forgotten law, but without having to amend or rewrite any Canadian laws. The report interprets existing Canadian privacy protections as offering RTBF to Canadian citizens. And if it offers it to Canadians, it can be enforced worldwide, despite their being no local statutory right to be forgotten.

• Geist notes there are several problems with the troubling conclusion the Commissioner has drawn. First, the privacy protections included in PIPEDA (Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act) cover commercial activity only, regulating use of users’ personal data. When it comes to search results, no commercial transaction takes place. The search engine simply returns results the user asks for. Search engines display ads with the results, but there’s no purchase involved, nor is there necessarily a relinquishment of user info.

• Just as importantly, the Commissioner’s conclusion — even if statutorily sound (though it isn’t) — runs directly contrary to the comments received from numerous stakeholders, including privacy groups.

=> ↺ Twilio Demonstrates Why Courts Should Review Every National Security Letter

• The list of companies who exercise their right to ask for judicial review when handed national security letter gag orders from the FBI is growing. Last week, the communications platform Twilio posted two NSLs after the FBI backed down from its gag orders. As Twilio’s accompanying blog post documents, the FBI simply couldn’t or didn’t want to justify its nondisclosure requirements in court. This might be the starkest public example yet of why courts should be involved in reviewing NSL gag orders in all cases.

• National security letters are a kind of subpoena that give the FBI the power to require telecommunications and Internet providers to hand over private customer records—including names, addresses, and financial records. The FBI nearly always accompanies these requests with a blanket gag order, shutting up the providers and keeping the practice in the shadows, away from public knowledge or criticism.

=> ↺ Facial recognition bill introduced into parliament

• Legislation has been introduced into parliament to set up a national facial recognition database, as agreed upon by the Coalition Government and the states in October last year.

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ Foreign passport no amulet in China: Global Times

• In 2015, Gui was abducted in Thailand while on holiday, one of five Hong Kong booksellers who went missing that year and later appeared in mainland Chinese custody. The four others have returned to Hong Kong.

=> ↺ Several Philadelphia Eagles Players Will Boycott the Post–Super Bowl White House Visit

• The Philadelphia Eagles won Super Bowl LII on February 4, and some players have already said they won’t attend any White House celebration their team may be invited to this year, according to the Los Angeles Times.

=> ↺ Immigrant Children Do Not Have the Right to an Attorney Unless They Can Pay, Rules Appeals Court

=> ↺ 6 Ways Government Is Going After Environmental Activists

• A preview of some of the shady tactics we might see in response to protests over construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.

• Thanks in large part to the indigenous-led mass mobilization at Standing Rock, there has been a major shift in public awareness and celebrity support for environmental activism. In turn, the government has gone to new lengths to suppress and criminalize this brand of activism.

=> ↺ Florida Bill Seeks to Stop Arrests of Injured Immigrant Workers

• A new bill under consideration by Florida lawmakers would stop insurance companies from dodging payouts by aiding in the arrest and deportation of unauthorized immigrants who are injured on the job.

• Legislators and advocates have been pushing for the measure since last summer when ProPublica and NPR documented more than 130 cases in which immigrants who had suffered legitimate workplace injuries were flagged to law enforcement agencies by their employers’ insurers. The workers faced felony fraud charges for using a fake ID when they sought medical care. Meanwhile, the insurers often avoided paying the workers’ compensation benefits legally due to all employees injured at work.

• Some workers were detained by federal immigration agents and deported without getting proper medical treatment for serious injuries.

• The practice stems from a provision in a 2003 workers’ comp law that made it a crime to file a claim using false identification. Many injured immigrants never pursued compensation themselves, ProPublica and NPR found. Instead, insurers turned them in after they sought treatment, and their employers transmitted paperwork containing the Social Security number they’d used to get hired.

• Because the law also made it a crime to apply for a job with a fake ID, hundreds of immigrant workers were charged with workers’ comp fraud even though they had never been injured or filed a claim.

=> ↺ Hacker Lauri Love Wins Extradition Appeal; Won’t Be Shipped Off To The US

• We’ve been writing about the saga of Lauri Love for almost four years now. If you don’t recall, he’s the British student who was accused of hacking into various US government systems, and who has been fighting a battle against being extradited to the US for all these years. For those of you old timers, the situation was quite similar to the story of Gary McKinnon, another UK citizen accused of hacking into US government computers, and who fought extradition for years. In McKinnon’s case, he lost his court appeals, but the extradition was eventually blocked by the UK’s Home Secretary… Theresa May.

=> ↺ Court Shuts Down Trooper’s Attempt To Portray New-ish Minivans With Imperfect Drivers As Justification For A Traffic Stop

• Anything you do can be suspicious. Just ask our guardians of public safety. People interacting with law enforcement can’t be too nervous. Or too calm. Or stare straight ahead. Or directly at officers. When traveling, travelers need to ensure they’re not the first person off the plane. Or the last. Or in the middle. When driving, people can’t drive too carefully. Or too carelessly. Traveling on interstate highways is right out, considering those are used by drug traffickers. Traveling along back roads probably just looks like avoiding more heavily-patrolled interstates, thus suspicious.

• Having too much trash in your car might get you labelled a drug trafficker — someone making a long haul between supply and destination cities. Conversely, a car that’s too clean looks like a “trap” car — a vehicle carefully kept in top condition to avoid raising law enforcement’s suspicion. Too clean is just as suspicious as too dirty. Air fresheners, a common fixture in vehicles, are also suspicious. Having too many of them is taken as an attempt to cover the odor of drugs. There’s no specific number that triggers suspicion. It’s all left up to the officer on the scene.

=> ↺ When You’re in Prison No One Prepares You for Coming Home

• Prison did little to prepare me for life after incarceration. And that has to change.

• In my memories of prison, there are no colors. It was a dark, cold, and gray place. Incarceration, for me, was defined by deprivation — not just deprivation of freedom, opportunity, and safety, but deprivation of the senses.

• On the day of my release, I stepped off a bus at Port Authority and walked out into the world for the first time in 13 years. I remember feeling suddenly overwhelmed by the oranges, blues, reds, and neon greens of New York City streets. After so many years in a concrete box, I was finally free. That excitement, however, soon gave way to anxiety. What I remember most clearly from that day is the feeling of fear that I wouldn’t be able to make it.

• I spent 13 years in prison, but no one started talking to me about my release until 90 days before I finished my sentence. During those conversations, the burden of responsibility was placed on me. I was asked where I would be living, the clinics and reentry programs I would be taking part in, but at no time was I given tools to do research about my options.

=> ↺ Leaked DHS Report Uses Junk Science to Argue for Surveillance of Muslims

• The report assumes that Sunni Muslims, by virtue of their religion, should be subject to heightened surveillance.

• A recent draft report from the Department of Homeland Security called for the discriminatory surveillance of Sunni Muslims in the United States.

• The report originated in U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Intelligence and was obtained and published by Foreign Policy magazine. It “examines 29 perpetrators of 25 terrorist incidents in the United States” that CBP “assesses were driven by radical Sunni Islamist militancy.” It concludes, based on the “common demographics” of those in the study, that the government should “continuously evaluate” those with similar characteristics in order to identify “individuals who might have a higher risk of becoming radicalized.” A CBP spokesperson stated that the report was an initial draft and has since been revised.

• The report is nonetheless alarming. First, let’s dispense with the euphemisms: When CBP calls for “vetting,” “recurrent screening,” and “on-going evaluations,” it is talking about long-term surveillance. And that surveillance would be nakedly discriminatory: The report focuses exclusively on Sunni Muslims in the United States and identifies religion and national origin in the “Middle East, South Asia or Africa” as reasons to “continuously evaluate” those who meet the profile. It also oozes religious animus, referring without evidence or explanation to “the long-term difficulty for some Muslim immigrants to integrate into U.S. society,” and casting particular suspicion on “Muslim converts.”

• Because this bias is baked into the report, its conclusions are nonsensical from a scientific standpoint. It analyzes only incidents involving what it calls “radical Sunni Islamist militancy” — ignoring other significant drivers of attacks, like violent right-wing extremism. It then concludes that those with characteristics similar to the 29 perpetrators should be surveilled. And even using this absurdly limited data set, the report still can’t identify meaningful trends or commonalities, leaving only what the attackers in the analysis shared: their Sunni Muslim identity. In other words, the report assumes its own conclusion, that Sunni Muslims, by virtue of their religion, should be subject to heightened surveillance. That’s the empirical equivalent of a dog chasing its own tail.

=> ↺ John Perry Barlow, Internet Pioneer, 1947-2018

• With a broken heart I have to announce that EFF’s founder, visionary, and our ongoing inspiration, John Perry Barlow, passed away quietly in his sleep this morning. We will miss Barlow and his wisdom for decades to come, and he will always be an integral part of EFF.

• It is no exaggeration to say that major parts of the Internet we all know and love today exist and thrive because of Barlow’s vision and leadership. He always saw the Internet as a fundamental place of freedom, where voices long silenced can find an audience and people can connect with others regardless of physical distance.

=> ↺ John Perry Barlow, Grateful Dead Lyricist and Internet Pioneer, Dead at 70

• John Perry Barlow, a lyricist for the Grateful Dead and cofounder of Electronic Frontier Foundation and Freedom of the Press Foundation, has died. He was 70.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ QUIC as a solution to protocol ossification

• The TCP protocol has become so ubiquitous that, to many people, the terms “TCP/IP” and “networking” are nearly synonymous. The fact that introducing new protocols (or even modifying existing protocols) has become nearly impossible tends to reinforce that situation. That is not stopping people from trying, though. At linux.conf.au 2018, Jana Iyengar, a developer at Google, discussed the current state of the QUIC protocol which, he said, is now used for about 7% of the traffic on the Internet as a whole.

• QUIC (“quick UDP Internet connection”) is, for now, intended for situations where the HTTP transport protocol is used over TCP. It has been under development for several years (LWN first looked at it in 2013), and was first deployed at Google in 2014. The main use for QUIC now is to move data between Google services and either the Chrome browser or various mobile apps. Using QUIC causes a 15-18% drop in rebuffering in YouTube and a 3.6-8% drop in Google search latency, Iyengar said. Getting that kind of improvement out of applications that have already been aggressively optimized is “somewhat absurd”.

• Use of QUIC increased slowly during 2015 before suddenly dropping to zero in December. It seems that somebody found a bug that could result in some requests being transmitted unencrypted, so QUIC was shut down until the issue could be fixed. In August 2016, usage abruptly doubled when QUIC was enabled in the YouTube app on phones. If anybody ever doubted that mobile is the future of computing, he said, this should convince them otherwise. Summed up, 35% of Google’s outbound traffic is carried over QUIC now.

DRM

=> ↺ Best Buy To Pull CDs From Its Stores, According To Report

• Best Buy has told music suppliers that it will pull all CDs from its stores this summer, according to a report from Billboard. This move should come as no big surprise: Between unlimited streaming services like Apple Music and Spotify, and the ongoing vinyl revival, CDs just don’t have the sway that they used to.

Intellectual Monopolies

Trademarks

=> ↺ Edible Arrangements Hits Google With $209M TM Suit

• Google Inc. confuses its users by conflating Edible Arrangements with its competitors in search results, the fruit basket company said in a lawsuit seeking $209 million in damages filed Monday in Connecticut federal court against the search engine giant.

=> ↺ BrewDog Beats Back Trademark Action From The Elvis Presley Estate

• In the middle of summer last year, we discussed a somewhat strange trademark fight between BrewDog, a Scottish Brewery that has been featured in our pages for less than stellar reasons, and the Elvis Presley Estate. At issue was BrewDog’s attempt to trademark the name of one of its beers, a grapefruit IPA called “Elvis Juice.” With no other explanation beyond essentially claiming that any use of Elvis everywhere will only be associated in the public’s mind as being affiliated by the 1950s rock legend, the Estate opposed the trademark application. Initially, the UK Intellectual Property Office sided with the Estate, despite the owners of BrewDog both pointing out that they were simply using a common first name and that they were actually taking the legal course of changing their first names to Elvis to prove their point. Not to mention that the trade dress for the beer has absolutely nothing to do with Elvis Presley. We wondered, and hoped, at the time if BrewDog would appeal the decision.

=> ↺ Advocate general stamps on Louboutin’s red-sole trade mark hopes

• Advocate General Szpunar in a second Louboutin v Van Haren opinion at the CJEU states he is “even less inclined to classify the mark at issue as one consisting of a colour per se”

• Advocate General Szpunar has delivered a second opinion in the famous Louboutin v Van Haren case relating to women’s red-soled shoes.

Copyrights

=> ↺ A Brief Sketch Of Privilegio In The Venetian Renaissance

• The very first recorded privilegio or privilege (early form of copyright) was given in Venice to Marc’Antonio Sabellico’s Rerum Venetarum, published in 1487, a book on the history of Venice. The mise-en-abyme quality deepens … Not only did the Venetian Senate grant privilege for this book about the murky origins of Venice, plus its history up to the moment of its publication in 1487, but they granted it to the author, not to a publisher. Sabellico subsequently chose the printer, Andrea de’ Torresani of Asola, to produce the work. This Early Modern concession to the rights of the author followed upon a continuous tradition from classical times forward that a text belonged to whomever owned its printed form. This breach between physical and intellectual property, operative since the beginning of the production of codices and manuscripts, momentarily closed before it opened once more with the triumph of the printed book trade as an industry.

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