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● 04.20.18

● Links 20/4/2018: Atom 1.26, MySQL 8.0

Posted in News Roundup at 3:55 am by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

Desktop

=> ↺ Calamares Pinebook

• But there is an under-appreciated bit regarding images for an ARM laptop — or pre-installed Linux distro’s in general. And that’s the first-run experience. The Netrunner Pinebook image is delivered so that it boots to the Plasma 5 desktop, no passwords asked, etc. The user is called “live”, the password is “live”, and nothing is personalized. It’s possible, though not particularly secure, to use the laptop this way in a truly disposable fashion. A first-run application helps finalize the configuration of the device by creating a named user, among other things.

• One of the under-documented features of Calamares is that it can operate as a first-run application as well as a system installer. This is called “OEM Mode“, because it’s of greatest interest to OEMs .. but also to distro’s that ship an image for users to flash onto (micro)SD card for use in a device.

Server

=> ↺ Failure to automate: 3 ways it costs you

• When I ask IT leaders what they see as the biggest benefit to automation, “savings” is often the first word out of their mouths. They’re under pressure to make their departments run as efficiently as possible and see automation as a way to help them do so.

• Cost savings are certainly a benefit of automation, but I’d argue that IT leaders who pursue automation for cost-savings alone are missing the bigger picture of how it can help their businesses.

• The true value of automation doesn’t lie in bringing down expenses, but rather in enabling IT teams to scale their businesses.

=> ↺ Docker Enterprise Edition 2.0 Launches With Secured Kubernetes

• After months of development effort, Kubernetes is now fully supported in the stable release of the Docker Enterprise Edition.

• Docker Inc. officially announced Docker EE 2.0 on April 17, adding features that have been in development in the Docker Community Edition (CE) as well as enhanced enterprise grade capabilities. Docker first announced its intention to support Kubernetes in October 2017. With Docker EE 2.0, Docker is providing a secured configuration of Kubernetes for container orchestration.

• “Docker EE 2.0 brings the promise of choice,” Docker Chief Operating Officer Scott Johnston told eWEEK. “We have been investing heavily in security in the last few years, and you’ll see that in our Kubernetes integration as well.”

Audiocasts/Shows

=> ↺ Ubuntu Podcast from the UK LoCo: S11E07 – Seven Years in Tibet – Ubuntu Podcast

Kernel Space

=> ↺ Linux 4.16.3

=> ↺ Linux 4.15.18

=> ↺ Linux 4.14.35

=> ↺ V3D DRM Driver Steps Towards Mainline Kernel, Renamed From VC5

• The Broadcom VC5 driver stack is being renamed to V3D and developer Eric Anholt is looking at merging it into the mainline Linux kernel.

• The VC5 DRM/KMS and Mesa code has been for supporting the next-generation Broadcom VideoCore 5 graphics hardware that’s only now beginning to appear in some devices, well, it seems one device so far. Though as I pointed out a few months back, there’s already “VC6″ activity going on too as the apparent successor to VC5 already being in development.

Linux Foundation

=> ↺ Azure Sphere Makes Microsoft an Arm Linux Player for IoT

=> ↺ Keynotes Announced for Automotive Linux Summit & OS Summit Japan

• Automotive Linux Summit connects those driving innovation in automotive Linux from the developer community with the vendors and users providing and using the code, in order to propel the future of embedded devices in the automotive arena.

=> ↺ OPNFV: driving the network towards open source “Tip to Top”

• Heather provides an update on the current status of OPNFV. How is its work continuing and how is it pursuing the overall mission? Heather says much of its work is really ‘devops’ and it’s working on a continuous integration basis with the other open source bodies. That work continues as more bodies join forces with the Linux Foundation. Most recently OPNFV has signed a partnership agreement with the open compute project. Heather says the overall OPNFV objective is to work towards open source ‘Tip to top’ and all built by the community in ‘open source’. “When we started, OPNFV was very VM oriented (virtual machine), but now the open source movement is looking more to cloud native and containerisation as the way forward,” she says. The body has also launched a C-RAN project to ensure that NFV will be ready to underpin 5G networks as they emerge.

Benchmarks

=> ↺ AMD Ryzen 5 2600X + Ryzen 7 2700X Linux Benchmarks

• The embargo on the Ryzen 5 2600X and Ryzen 7 2700X processors has expired now that these Ryzen+ CPUs are beginning to ship today. We can now talk about the Linux support and the initial performance figures for these upgraded Zen desktop CPUs.

=> ↺ 20-Way NVIDIA GeForce / AMD Radeon GPU Comparison For Rise of The Tomb Raider On Vulkan/Linux

• Today Feral Interactive released their much anticipated Linux port of Rise of the Tomb Raider, the game that was released for Windows in January of 2016 and then released for macOS last week. Feral’s Mac port was relying upon the Apple Metal API while the Linux port is now their second game (after F1 2017) exclusively relying upon the Vulkan graphics/compute API rather than OpenGL. This morning I posted the initial Radeon results using the RADV driver while here is the NVIDIA GeForce vs. AMD Radeon graphics card comparison on Ubuntu Linux using twenty different graphics cards.

Applications

=> ↺ Atom 1.26

• Atom 1.26 has been released on our stable channel and includes GitHub package improvements, fuzzy-finder support for Teletype and file system watcher improvements.

=> ↺ Atom Hackable Text Editor Gets GitHub Package, Filesystem Watcher Improvements

• GitHub announced the release of the Atom 1.26 open-source and cross-platform hackable text editor for Linux, macOS, and Windows platforms with more improvements and bug fixes.

• In Atom 1.26, the GitHub package received various improvements and new features, among which we can mention the ability of the ’s Git pane to display a read-only list of recent commits for quick reference, and support for storing your GitHub username and password credentials in the Git authentication dialog.

=> ↺ Announcing Virtlyst – a web interface to manage virtual machines

• Virtlyst is a web tool that allows you to manage virtual machines.

• In essence it’s a clone of webvirtmgr, but using Cutelyst as the backend, the reasoning behind this was that my father in law needs a server for his ASP app on a Win2k server, the server has only 4 GiB of RAM and after a week running webvirtmgr it was eating 300 MiB close to 10% of all available RAM. To get a VNC or SPICE tunnel it spawns websockify which on each new instance around 20 MiB of RAM get’s used.

• I found this unacceptable, a tool that is only going to be used once in a while, like if the win2k freezes or goes BSOD, CPU usage while higher didn’t play a role on this.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ The simplest way to make a LiveUSB from within GNU/Linux

• I change distributions like people change socks, because I’m stubborn and refuse to test things through virtual machines and would rather run it pure and dry off my hardware.

• I have this one unbranded 8gb USB stick that I literally bought (a handful of others of, all lost or dead) out of the back of a van, that I have continued to use for my LiveUSB’s for about five or six years now, and its still kicking.

• Thankfully, doing this change from distro to distro is incredibly simple, with the use of just a couple quick terminal commands. This will work from within any distribution.

=> ↺ A quick look at the git object store

=> ↺ Sidecar container for Python exceptions

=> ↺ logstash 5.6.9 logstash-input-udp 3.3.1 br0ken

=> ↺ How to Install Elastic Jamroom on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

=> ↺ More L337 Translations

=> ↺ Detect a UEFI partition

=> ↺ LMMS Guide Part 2: Tempo, Time Signatures, Beats and Bass Lines

=> ↺ Weekly Command: going over Git history with tig

=> ↺ Install Apache Hadoop on Ubuntu 17.10!

=> ↺ Gnome: Save And Restore Running Applications And Window Positions With Window Session Manager

=> ↺ Backup And Restore Application Settings On Newly Installed Linux System

=> ↺ UEFI booting and RAID1

=> ↺ How to Install Ubuntu 18.04 Dual Boot with Windows 10

=> ↺ How to Synchronize Time with NTP in Linux

=> ↺ Migrating to Linux: Network and System Settings

• Linux gives you a lot of control over network and system settings. On your desktop, Linux lets you tweak just about anything on the system. Most of these settings are exposed in plain text files under the /etc directory. Here I describe some of the most common settings you’ll use on your desktop Linux system.

• A lot of settings can be found in the Settings program, and the available options will vary by Linux distribution. Usually, you can change the background, tweak sound volume, connect to printers, set up displays, and more. While I won’t talk about all of the settings here, you can certainly explore what’s in there.

Games

=> ↺ Satellite Reign is currently free in the Humble Store, lots of Linux games on sale across different stores

• It seems every week there’s a new deal going on you don’t want to miss! Right now Humble Store is offering free copies of Satellite Reign and other stores also have sales on.

• The current Humble Monthly will also allow you to unlock the recently released Linux port of RUINER along with Kerbal Space Program.

=> ↺ Check your privacy settings on GOG, as they’re rolling out a new profile system

• Buried in the GOG forum, a staff member has noted that GOG accounts have new privacy options ahead of the release of their own version of user profiles. It seems GOG are continuing to become a little like Steam as time goes on, with their Galaxy client that still isn’t on Linux (and isn’t a priority last we heard) and now this.

=> ↺ Sword fighter ‘Blade Symphony’ has delayed the next update that was due to get Linux support

• It seems the developer of Blade Symphony [Steam] has had a case of feature-creep and so the next update that was due with Linux support is going to be late.

=> ↺ Rise of the Tomb Raider is now officially available on Linux, here’s a look at it with benchmarks

• Feral Interactive have teamed up with Crystal Dynamics and Square Enix once again to bring a top title to Linux, this time we have Rise of the Tomb Raider.

=> ↺ Rise of the Tomb Raider tested on AMD RX 580

• To go along with Liam’s benchmarks of the game on his Nvidia GPU, I decided to also run some tests on my RX 580 to give you a picture of the AMD performance of the Rise of the Tomb Raider port. So, let’s go!

=> ↺ Rise of the Tomb Raider Linux Performance On AMD Radeon GPUs

• Yesterday Feral announced that the long-awaited Linux release of Rise of the Tomb Raider would be coming tomorrow and now they have honored that release. Rise of the Tomb Raider is now natively available for Linux and this port is exclusively relying upon the Vulkan graphics API for rendering. Here are our initial benchmarks of Rise of the Tomb Raider on Linux with Radeon GPUs while making use of the Mesa RADV driver.

=> ↺ Rise of the Tomb Raider: 20 Year Celebration Is Out Now on Linux

• Feral Interactive, the UK-based video games publisher, announced today the availability of the Rise of the Tomb Raider: 20 Year Celebration video game on the Linux platform.

• After being released on Apple’s macOS platform last week, the Rise of the Tomb Raider: 20 Year Celebration video game comes today to Linux gamers, and this special edition has all the DLCs released since its official launch more than two years ago, including Baba Yaga: The Temple of the Witch, Blood Ties, and Cold Darkness Awakened.

=> ↺ Linux Gaming Performance With AMD Ryzen 5 2600X / Ryzen 7 2700X

• Today the Ryzen+ “Pinnacle Ridge” processors begin shipping and we can now share with you the initial performance results for the Ryzen 5 2600X and Ryzen 7 2700X processors. One of the most common questions I’ve received about these improved Zen processors since showing them off last week was inquiries/hopes about the Linux gaming performance, so those numbers are first up today followed by other Linux benchmark results forthcoming.

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

=> ↺ KDE Applications Open Source Software Suite Gets First Major Release in 2018

• More than four months in the making, the final KDE Applications 18.04 release is finally here, and it already started appearing in the stable software repositories of popular GNU/Linux distributions, such as Arch Linux. It’s KDE Applications’ first major release in 2018 and comes with numerous enhancements and new features.

• Prominent new features in KDE Applications 18.04 include various improvements to the panels, menus, and folder view of the Dolphin file manager, along with the ability to sort and organize images by date, drag-and-drop optimizations, a new keyboard shortcut to open the Filter Bar, and better HiDPI support.

=> ↺ KDE Applications 18.04 Brings Dolphin Improvements, JuK Wayland Support

• The KDE community has announced the release today of KDE Applications 18.04 as the first major update to the open-source KDE application set for 2018.

=> ↺ Plasma Startup

• Startup is one of the rougher aspects of the Plasma experience and therefore something we’ve put some time into fixing

• [...]

• The most important part of any speed work is correctly analysing it. systemd-bootchart is nearly perfect for this job, but it’s filled with a lot of system noise.

Distributions

Reviews

=> ↺ Nix This Innovative OS for Its Uninviting Complexity

• I had to keep reminding myself that I was not dealing with an extreme case of Arch Linux instead of GNU/Linux. NixOS is more demanding and definitely not a distro for users with anything less than advanced skills.

• To say NixOS comes with a steep learning curve and lots of hands-on overhead is putting it mildly. If you are a typical Linux user who lacks sysadmin training, avoid NixOS like a malware attack hiding in plain sight.

New Releases

=> ↺ ExTiX 18.4 – “The Ultimate Linux System” – with LXQt 0.12.0, Refracta Tools, Calamares Installer and kernel 4.16.2-exton – Build 180419

• I have made a new version of ExTiX – The Ultimate Linux System. I call it ExTiX 18.4 LXQt Live DVD. (The previous version was 17.8 from 171012).

=> ↺ ExTiX, the Ultimate Linux Operating System, Is Now Based on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

• ExTiX is dubbed the “Ultimate Linux System,” and it’s been updated earlier today by developer Arne Exton to version 18.4, based on Canonical’s upcoming Ubuntu 18.04 LTS operating system. However, ExTiX is using the lightweight and modern LXQt 0.12.0 as default desktop environment instead of GNOME, and it’s powered by the latest Linux 4.16.2 kernel.

• “After removing GNOME I have installed LXQt 0.12.0,” said Arne Exton in today’s announcement. “Programs won’t crash or anything like that. And I haven’t discovered any bugs to report. While running ExTiX LXQt 18.4 live or from the hard drive you can use Refracta tools (pre-installed) to create your own live installable Ubuntu system. A ten-year child can do it.”

OpenSUSE/SUSE

=> ↺ openSUSE Heroes loves Let’s Encrypt™ – Expect certificate exchange

• openSUSE loves Let’s Encrypt™

• Maybe some of you noticed, that our certificate *.opensuse.org on many of services will expire soon (on 2018-04-23).

• As we noticed that – as well – we decided to put a bit of work into this topic and we will use Let’s Encrypt certificates for the encrypted services of the openSUSE community.

• This is just a short notice / announcement for all of you, that we are working on this topic at the moment. We will announce, together with the deployment of the new certificate, the regarding hashes and maybe some further information on our way of implementing things.

Red Hat Family

=> ↺ Introducing the Vault Operator

• Today, Red Hat is pleased to announce a new open source project, the Vault Operator. In keeping with earlier projects, including the etcd Operator and the Prometheus Operator, the Vault Operator aims to make it easier to install, manage, and maintain instances of Vault – a tool designed for storing, managing, and controlling access to secrets, such as tokens, passwords, certificates, and API keys – on Kubernetes clusters.

• We are supporters of Vault, for important reasons. Authentication is fundamental to modern applications. As application design shifts from monolithic to distributed architectures, the various components of an application must communicate with each other over a network in ways that are designed to be trusted and secure. This typically requires authentication, which in turn requires credentials, or secrets. The problem is that there is no de facto way to centrally locate and manage these secrets.

=> ↺ Expanding architectural choices to better arm Red Hat Enterprise Linux developers

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux continues to deliver the best possible experience for enterprise system administrators and developers, as well as provide a solid foundation for moving workloads into both public and private clouds. One of the ways to enable such ubiquity is Red Hat’s multi-architecture initiative, which focuses on bringing Red Hat’s software portfolio to different hardware architectures.

• Last week, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.5 went live. It brought forward several improvements relevant to developers and system administrators such as advanced GUI system management via the Cockpit console, which should help new Linux administrators, developers, and Windows users to perform expert tasks without having to get into the command line.

=> ↺ Altran and Red Hat latest to join 5TONIC 5G Innovation Lab

• Two more companies have joined the specialist 5G mobile research and innovation laboratory in Spain called 5TONIC. Altran and Red Hat are the latest companies to become members of the 5TONIC initiative joining existing companies such as Telefónica, Intel and Ericsson.

• Hosted by its co-founder – research organisation IMDEA Networks Institute – on its campus in Madrid, and chaired by Telefónica, the 5TONIC laboratory has been designed to provide a vehicle for member companies to “co-create” and test breakthrough 5G services and solutions – focused on collaborating with other industries.

=> ↺ Surescripts speeds DevOps work with Red Hat Ansible Automation

=> ↺ An API Journey: From Idea to Deployment the Agile Way–Part II

=> ↺ Moving Production Workloads to OpenShift Online

=> ↺ Red Hat Executive Briefing Center named a World Class Center by the Association of Briefing Program Managers

=> ↺ How to engage with Technical Account Managers at Red Hat Summit 2018

Finance

=> ↺ Taking a Look at the Data Behind Red Hat, Inc. (RHT)

Debian Family

=> ↺ 15.010958904109589041

• And yes! On April 15, I passed the 15-year-mark as a Debian Developer.

=> ↺ 10 years + 1 day

• yesterday 10 years ago I became a Debian Developer.

=> ↺ Diversity Update

• Which brings us to a panel for the upcoming Debconf in Taiwan. There is a suggestion to have a Gender Forum at the Openday. I’m still not completely sure what it should cover or what is expected for it and I guess it’s still open for suggestions. There will be a plan, let’s see to make it diverse and great!

• I won’t promise to send the next update sooner, but I’ll try to get back into it. Right now I’m also working on a (German language) submission for a non-binary YouTube project and it would be great to see that thing lift off. I’ll be more verbose on that front.

Derivatives

Canonical/Ubuntu

=> ↺ Meet Bo, an Ubuntu-Powered Social Robot with AI Capabilities

• Meet Bo, a social robot with AI (Artificial Intelligence) capabilities, powered by Canonical’s Ubuntu Linux operating system and optimized to welcome customers, as well as to help them navigate to find products and areas in your organization.

• Bo was already used by several well-known brands like Etisalat and BT in a bunch of scenarios, including hospitality and retail scenarios, and it’s being tested in large shopping centers in the United Kingdom, such as Lakeside.

=> ↺ The Unique Ubuntu Budgie 18.04 Beta 2

• It is the most unique among the Official Flavors in the 18.04. It’s the only to bring Chromium browser, and it gives you the unique Budgie Desktop experiences. It is really a good place for everyone who wants new, distinct desktop experience with modern version of software and broad space to explore. And ultimately it is still available for 32 bit, which has been abandoned by Ubuntu original. We will wait until the planned release on April 26.

=> ↺ gksu Removed From Ubuntu, Here’s The Recommended Replacement

• gksu is used to allow elevating your permissions when running graphical applications, for example in case you want to run a graphical text editor as root to edit a system file, or to be able to remove or add a file to a system folder.

=> ↺ Welcome To The (Ubuntu) Bionic Age: Behind communitheme: interviewing Frederik

• My name is Frederik, I live in Germany and I am working as a java software developer in my daily job.

• I am using Ubuntu since 5 years and quickly started to report bugs and issues when they jumped into my face. Apart from that, I like good music, and beautiful software. I also make my own music in my free time.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ Single-unit version of Odroid-MC1 cluster computer adds flexibility

• Hardkernel has launched a stackable single-unit Solo version of its 4-board Odroid-MC1 cluster computer. The system runs Linux on a octa-core Samsung Exynos5422 based Odroid-XU4S SBC.

• Hardkernel has spun a single-unit version of its four-unit, 32-core Odroid-MC1 cluster computer for running Docker Swarm, Build Farm, and other parallel computing applications. The octa-core Odroid-MC1 Solo costs $48 instead of $220 for the original. The design offers greater flexibility, enabling users to combine Odroid-MC1 Solo units for a “single unit, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, or n stackable cluster” or combine one or more Solo units with the original 4-unit MC1 to act as a single cluster,” says Hardkernel.

=> ↺ 3.5-inch Apollo Lake SBC goes all out on USB and serial links

• Aaeon’s 3.5-inch “GENE-APL7” SBC provides an Intel Apollo Lake SoC, SATA III, mini-PCIe, VGA, up to 2x LVDS, 2x GbE, 8x USB, and up to 12x serial interfaces.

Tizen

=> ↺ Samsung Z4 has a new software / firmware update Z400FODDOBRB1

• It has been some time since we have seen a software/firmware update for any of the Tizen smartphones, but it’s good to see that the Samsung Z4 get an update, albeit a small one. The latest update is version Z400FODDOBRB1 and still retains the Tizen platform version as 3.0.0.1. The update measures in at only 8.8MB and the full changelog can be found below.

Android

=> ↺ Google Reportedly Working on Dual Boot Support for Chrome OS on Chromebooks

=> ↺ Force: This one’s for the butterfingered Android lovers

=> ↺ Motorola’s new Beta Experiences program will let you test new Moto features before they’re public

=> ↺ 9 Android settings that’ll strengthen your security

=> ↺ Moto G6 Plus and G6 Play photos and details pop up on Carphone Warehouse’s site

Free Software/Open Source

=> ↺ Open source crucial to Orange as it prepares for ONAP deployment

• Orange has long played a key part in the testing and adoption of ONAP, dating back to when its ECOMP predecessor was created by AT&T as a platform for managing a software-defined network. The move to open source and its development as the ONAP project has made the platform a key component of the new telco open networking movement. But why should other telcos look to ONAP as they embark on their network transformation strategies, and how does it help enable the automated network that will lead to new business opportunities?

Events

=> ↺ Lessons from OpenStack Telemetry: Deflation

• At some point, the rules relaxed on new projects addition with the Big Tent initiative, allowing us to rename ourselves to the OpenStack Telemetry team and splitting Ceilometer into several subprojects: Aodh (alarm evaluation functionality) and Panko (events storage). Gnocchi was able to join the OpenStack Telemetry party for its first anniversary.

Web Browsers

Mozilla

=> ↺ Dev-tools in 2018

• This is a bit late (how is it the middle of April already?!), but the dev-tools team has lots of exciting plans for 2018 and I want to talk about them!

• [...]

• We’re creating two new teams – Rustdoc, and IDEs and editors – and going to work more closely with the Cargo team. We’re also spinning up a bunch of working groups. These are more focused, less formal teams, they are dedicated to a single tool or task, rather than to strategy and decision making. Primarily they are a way to let people working on a tool work more effectively. The dev-tools team will continue to coordinate work and keep track of the big picture.

=> ↺ Nonny de la Peña & the Power of Immersive Storytelling

• This week, we’re highlighting VR’s groundbreaking potential to take audiences inside stories with a four part video series. There aren’t many examples of creators doing that more effectively and powerfully than Nonny de la Peña.

• Nonny de la Peña is a former correspondent for Newsweek, the New York Times and other major outlets. For more than a decade now, de la Peña has been focused on merging her passion for documentary filmmaking with a deep-seeded expertise in VR. She essentially invented the field of “immersive journalism” through her company, Emblematic Group.

Databases

=> ↺ MySQL 8.0 Released With Many Improvements, Faster Performance

• It’s a busy day in the software and hardware space today as well as a busy week for Oracle with several big releases this week. The latest is the general availability of the long-awaited MySQL 8.0 update.

• MySQL 8.0 is a very significant update over the MySQL 5.7 series. MySQL 8.0 features a transactional data dictionary, a new document store with NoSQL support, and up to twice as fast MySQL database performance compared to version 5.7.

=> ↺ MySQL 8.0: Up to 2x Faster

=> ↺ MySQL 8.0 released

• MySQL 8.0.11 GA (General Availability) is out today—for those not used to Oracle’s idiosyncratic versioning, this essentially means “MySQL 8.0 is released” (8.0.1 and so forth were various stages of alpha and beta). This marks the end of three years of development, of which I’ve been on board for two or so of them.

=> ↺ Help Canonical Test GNOME Patches, Android Apps Illegally Tracking Kids, MySQL 8.0 Released and More

• MySQL 8.0 has been released. This new version “includes significant performance, security and developer productivity improvements enabling the next generation of web, mobile, embedded and Cloud applications.” MySQL 8.0 features include MySQL document store, transactional data dictionary, SQL roles, default to utf8mb4 and more. See the white paper for all the details.

Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

=> ↺ Collabora Online 3.2 released

• Collabora Productivity, the driving force behind putting LibreOffice in the Cloud, is excited to announce a new release of its flagship enterprise-ready cloud document suite – Collabora Online 3.2, with new features and multiple improvements.

=> ↺ Collabora Online 3.2 Brings More Powerful Features to LibreOffice in the Cloud

• Michael Meeks of the Collabora Productivity has the pleasure of informing Softpedia today on the availability of Collabora Online 3.2, the second point release of the Collabora Online 3 series that promises yet another layer of new features and improvements to the enterprise-ready, cloud-based office suite.

• Based on the LibreOffice 6.1 open-source office suite, Collabora Online 3.2 introduces support for creating and inserting charts into Writer and Impress documents, and the ability to validate data in Calc, which might come in handy for engineers who want to do a final assembly inspection on their tablets, as well as to collaborate with their colleagues to ensure all tests are passed by a complete product.

=> ↺ Oracle demands dev tear down iOS app that has ‘JavaScript’ in its name

• Oracle, claims developer Zhongmin Steven Guo, has demanded that Apple remove an app he created because it contains the trademarked term “JavaScript.”

• The app in question, published by Guo’s Tyanya Software LLC – which appears to be more a liability shield than a thriving software business – is titled “HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, HTML, Snippet Editor.”

• The name, Guo explains in a Hacker News comment, was chosen in an effort to “game the App Store ranking by adding all the keywords to the app name.”

Pseudo-Open Source (Openwashing)

=> ↺ Apple’s cloud database FoundationDB now open source

• Apple has just released a new open source project on Github. FoundationDB is described as “a distributed database designed to handle large volumes of structured data across clusters of commodity servers”. The database system is focused on performance, scalability and fault-tolerance. Meaning projects that use the database for their backend are faster and less expensive to maintain.

=> ↺ Apple Open Sources FoundationDB

=> ↺ Apple continues open source campaign by releasing FoundationDB on GitHub

=> ↺ Apple-owned FoundationDB open sources the core technology at the heart of iCloud

=> ↺ FoundationDB, a very interesting NoSQL database owned by Apple, is now an open-source project

=> ↺ FoundationDB is Open Source

• Starting today, FoundationDB starts its next chapter as an open source project!

• FoundationDB is a distributed datastore, designed from the ground up to be deployed on clusters of commodity hardware. These clusters scale well as you add machines, automatically heal from hardware failures, and have a simple API. The key-value store supports fully global, cross-row ACID transactions. That’s the highest level of data consistency possible. What does this mean for you? Strong consistency makes your application code simpler, your data models more efficient, and your failure modes less surprising.

• The great thing is that FoundationDB is already well-established — it’s actively developed and has years of production use. We intend to drive FoundationDB forward as a community project and we welcome your participation.

=> ↺ Apple Open Sources FoundationDB, Releases Code On GitHub

• Back in 2015, Apple bought FoundationDB, a NoSQL database company. It created a distributed database of the same name designed to deal with large masses of structured data across clusters of servers. In a recent development, Apple has shared the FoundationDB core and turned it into an open source project.

=> ↺ Microsoft offers limited-time 30 percent discount on SQL Server on Linux

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

=> ↺ Friday Free Software Directory IRC meetup time: April 20th starting at 12:00 p.m. EDT/16:00 UTC

• Help improve the Free Software Directory by adding new entries and updating existing ones. Every Friday we meet on IRC in the #fsf channel on irc.freenode.org.

• Tens of thousands of people visit directory.fsf.org each month to discover free software. Each entry in the Directory contains a wealth of useful information, from basic category and descriptions, to providing detailed info about version control, IRC channels, documentation, and licensing info that has been carefully checked by FSF staff and trained volunteers.

Public Services/Government

=> ↺ Researchers deliver open-source simulator for cyber physical systems

• Cyber physical systems (CPS) are attracting more attention than ever thanks to the rapid development of the Internet of Things (IoT) and its combination with artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and the cloud. These interacting networks of physical and computational components will provide the foundation of critical infrastructure, form the basis of ‘smart’ services, and improve the quality of life in areas ranging from energy and environment to transportation and healthcare.

• CPS technologies are already transforming the way people interact with engineered systems in the ‘real’ or ‘physical’ world, just as the internet has transformed the way people interact with information. Yet, due to their complexity, the developers of CPS face a major problem: the lack of simulation tools and models for their design and analysis.

Licensing/Legal

=> ↺ Creators face an evolving challenge protecting IP

• The GNU General Public License, under which the operating system Linux and much open-source software is shared, is another example of copyleft.

• Open-source software, where programs are worked on together by loosely connected developer communities rather than traditional software houses, show one way IP can be shared without stifling innovation. Linux, the mobile operating system Android and the database system MySQL have all achieved widespread adoption, and are continually innovating despite, or perhaps because of, being open source.

Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

=> ↺ Emerging Tech Speaker Series Talk with Rian Wanstreet

• This is an opportunity for the open source community, as alternative technologies and platforms are being developed which provide farmers the ability to farm outside of walled gardens. From open source seed initiatives, to open farm technologies, to data platform cooperatives, there is a small, but growing, collaborative movement that recognizes that farmers are at a critical moment: they can help to establish tools that advance freedom, or accept machines that foster dependencies.

=> ↺ Williamson Schools to develop open source social studies curriculum

• The open source science curriculum saved the district about $3.3 million. An open source social studies curriculum may post similar savings, with estimates at about $3.5-4 million, Gaddis said.

Open Data

=> ↺ Large Open-Source Data Set Released to Help Train Algorithms Spot Malware

• For the first time, a large dataset has been released by a security firm to help AI research and training of machine learning models that statically detect malware. The data set released by cybersecurity firm Endgame is called EMBER is a collection of more than a million representations of benign and malicious Windows-portable executable files. Hyrum Anderson, Endgame’s technical director of data science who worked on EMBER, says: “This dataset fills a void in the information security machine learning community: a benign/malicious dataset that is large, open and general enough to cover several interesting use cases. … [We] hope that the dataset, code and baseline model provided by EMBER will help invigorate machine learning research for malware detection, in much the same way that benchmark datasets have advanced computer vision research.”

Open Hardware/Modding

=> ↺ Open Source Innovation Could Put a 3D Bioprinter in Your Living Room

• 3D bioprinting traditionally requires high-level expertise, proprietary technology and a five-figure investment. A team of researchers from Carnegie Mellon University setout to change all that. In a paper published earlier this month in HardwareX, the group released the design of a fully functional 3D bioprinter it built by altering a widely available desktop 3D machine. The team’s innovation could be a game changer in terms of the overall accessibility of bioprinting.

=> ↺ 3D Printing the SynDaver Open-Source Healthcare Mannequin

• As desktop 3D printers become more robust, reliable, and feature-rich, we are seeing a definite shift in professional use-cases from prototyping to producing final products.

=> ↺ Unlock & Talk: Open Source Bootloader & Modem

• Since [Tom Nardi] introduced Hackaday readers to postmarketOS, the team has made progress on compiling a standard bootloader for MediaTek System-on-Chip (SoC) processors. Many Android phones use the MIT-licensed Little Kernel as the base of their bootloader and then apply custom closed-source modifications. [McBitter] has worked to eliminate this closed-source code by porting Little Kernel to the MT6735P used in the Coolpad Modena 2. By understanding the modifications MediaTek used for this particular SoC, the postmarketOS team hopes to use their modified, open-source Little Kernel bootloader with other MediaTek-based devices. While progress has been difficult and attempts at using emulators to probe bootloader memory have failed, [McBitter] was able to decode the DRAM configuration settings by searching for a leaked portion of the configuration strings. Now that he can set up the DRAM, there should be few barriers to running Little Kernel.

Programming/Development

=> ↺ ​Learn to use GitHub with GitHub Learning Lab

• The most popular open-source development site in the world is GitHub. It’s used by tens of millions of developers to work on over 80 million projects.

• It’s not just a site where people use Linus Torvalds’ Git open-source distributed version control system. It’s also an online home for collaboration, a sandbox for testing, a launchpad for deployment, and a platform for learning new skills. The GitHub Training Team has now released an app, GitHub Learning Lab, so you can join the programming party.

• GitHub Learning Lab is not a tutorial or webcast. It’s an app that gives you a hands-on learning experience within GitHub. According to GitHub, “Our friendly bot will take you through a series of practical, fun labs that will give you the skills you need in no time–and share helpful feedback along the way.”

=> ↺ GitHub Learning Labs Now Open For Newbies

=> ↺ GitHub launches learning and training lab for developers

=> ↺ GitHub launches bot-powered learning lab for budding developers

=> ↺ Github Gives New Coders a Hand With a Bot-Led Learning Lab

Leftovers

=> ↺ D.C. lawmaker who said Jews control the weather visits Holocaust Museum but leaves early

• “There’s nothing more powerful than visiting the Holocaust museum for understanding the culture of the Jewish community, and our concerns about anti-Semitism,” Glazer told an uninvited reporter who shadowed the tour.

Health/Nutrition

=> ↺ Charles Gore, Founder Of World Hepatitis Alliance, To Head Medicines Patent Pool

• The Medicines Patent Pool announced today that it has appointed Charles Gore as new executive director. Gore is founder and former president of the World Hepatitis Alliance.

• [...]

• Also to be released by the MPP are the findings of its feasibility study on the potential expansion of its model to include patented medicines which are on the WHO Model List of Essential Medicines.

• Gore, from the United Kingdom (as was Perry), was a former hepatitis C patient. In a 2010 post on the World Hepatitis Alliance website, he recounted his struggle with the illness first diagnosed in 1995.

• Gore was selected by the MPP Governance Board, headed by Marie-Paule Kieny, a French researcher and former senior official at the World Health Assembly.

Security

=> ↺ Hackers once stole a casino’s high-roller database through a thermometer in the lobby fish tank

• Hackers are increasingly targeting “internet of things” devices to access corporate systems, using things like CCTV cameras or air-conditioning units, according to the CEO of a cybersecurity firm.

• The internet of things refers to devices hooked up to the internet, and it has expanded to include everything from household appliances to widgets in power plants.

• Nicole Eagan, the CEO of Darktrace, told the WSJ CEO Council Conference in London on Thursday: “There’s a lot of internet-of-things devices, everything from thermostats, refrigeration systems, HVAC systems, to people who bring in their Alexa devices into the offices. There’s just a lot of IoT. It expands the attack surface, and most of this isn’t covered by traditional defenses.”

=> ↺ Certificate Transparency and HTTPS

• CT stands for “Certificate Transparency” and, in simple terms, means that all certificates for websites will need to be registered by the issuing Certificate Authority (CA) in at least two public Certificate Logs.

=> ↺ Security updates for Thursday

=> ↺ IBM introduces open-source library for protecting AI systems

=> ↺ How to combine SSH key authentication and two-factor authentication on Linux

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ War Fever

• What happens when an unthinkable war meets an unbeatable case of war fever? Thanks to Russia-gate, unsubstantiated reports about the use of poison gas in Syria, and a slew of similar factoids and pseudo-scandals, the world may soon find out.

• In saner times, including during the Cold War at even its most heated, political leaders knew not to push a conflict with a rival nuclear power too far. After all, what was the point of getting into a fight in which everyone would lose?

=> ↺ Public Radio’s McCarthyite Smear of Black Activists Shows Danger of Russia Panic

• For over a year, outlets from FAIR (8/24/16) to TruthDig (1/7/17) to The Nation (8/7/17) to The Intercept (2/12/18) have been warning about the pitfalls of nonstop Russia Is Everywhere and Out to Get Us coverage. The Russians are “stoking discord” and “sowing unrest” and infiltrating online and real-life spaces with memes and rallies and disinformation, corporate media tell us. Did you share Russian disinfo? Twitter and Facebook will let you know. Did you buy into Russian “fake news”? CNN wants to find out. Russia is everywhere, and it’s important the media not only report this fact, but do so over and over and over again, until one is looking for the Russian menace in every interaction.

• This narrative, fueled by center-left outlets like MSNBC, Center for American Progress and Mother Jones, has reached its inevitable, sleazy nadir: the smearing of a black activist by an NPR affiliate for the crime of going on a Russian government–funded radio station a handful of times.

• Reporter Johnny Kauffman at WABE (4/18/18), an NPR affiliate in Atlanta, did a profile on black activists Anoa Changa and Eugene Puryear. But instead of using this opportunity to highlight the causes they’re fighting for, or the injustices that brought them to become activists, WABE used its considerable resources and influence to talk about, you guessed, Russian influence…

=> ↺ Of Animals and Monsters and Missiles over Damascus

• Alas, the world has always been, and still is, full of “monsters” and “animals.” And, since we are throwing around such epithets, we might as well give a couple of close-to-home examples of those qualifying behaviors.

Transparency/Investigative Reporting

=> ↺ Assange had ‘physical proof’ Russians didn’t hack DNC, Rohrabacher says

• Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, California Republican, left a meeting with Julian Assange believing the WikiLeaks publisher had “physical proof” Russia didn’t supply his website with leaked Democratic National Committee emails it released during the 2016 U.S. presidential race.

• Mr. Rohrabacher made the comment in a interview with Breitbart Radio published online Thursday in which he spoke about his August 2017 visit to the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.

• Mr. Assange took up refuge in the diplomatic compound in 2012, and in 2016 his website began publishing sensitive DNC emails allegedly sourced by Russian state-sponsored hackers as part of an effort meant to help President Trump’s election campaign.

=> ↺ Assange has ‘physical proof’ Russia didn’t hack DNC – Congressman

• Russia did not provide WikiLeaks with Democratic National Committee emails during the 2016 US presidential campaign and Julian Assange has physical evidence to prove it, says a Republican congressman who met with him.

=> ↺ Rohrabacher: Assange had ‘physical proof’ Russians didn’t hack DNC

• Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, California Republican, left a meeting with Julian Assange believing the WikiLeaks publisher had “physical proof” Russia didn’t supply his website with leaked Democratic National Committee emails it released during the 2016 U.S. presidential race.

Finance

=> ↺ Florida Moves to Shut Down For-Profit Residence After Finding Horrific Abuse and Neglect

• After another patient died under suspicious circumstances and reports surfaced of more instances of abuse and neglect, Florida regulators moved this week to shutter a for-profit school and residential campus for children and adults with severe developmental disabilities.

• The action Tuesday by Florida’s Agency for Persons with Disabilities came after years of complaints that patients at the Carlton Palms Educational Center were violently mistreated by staff and subjected to physical restraints known as “wrap mats,” which resemble full-body straitjackets.

• Carlton Palms and its owner’s other facilities were the subject of a ProPublica investigation two years ago that chronicled the deaths of three teenaged patients, patterns of abuse and neglect, and company executives’ often-successful efforts to stave off regulation.

=> ↺ Canadian opposition to Nafta’s chapter 11 gives Trudeau leeway

• Canadians urged Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to concede on a U.S. demand in Nafta negotiations around investor disputes, while holding firm on calls for more environmental and labor protection.

• The most frequent advice the government heard in public consultations before North American Free Trade Agreement talks opened in August was to eliminate Chapter 11, the part of the pact that deals with investor-state dispute settlement, according to documents obtained by Bloomberg News through a freedom of information request. The government began the consultation process last year by asking for written submissions from the public after the U.S. gave notice it wanted to renegotiate the 24-year-old agreement.

• [...]

• Some of Trudeau’s other progressive ideas for Nafta aren’t very popular. While 29 submissions wanted environmental protection and another 21 sought better labor rules, there was far less support for Trudeau’s call for chapters on gender and indigenous rights.

• Priorities expressed during the consultations also included modernizing Nafta for the digital age, boosting labor and environment protections, cutting red tape and ensuring a free market in government procurement, according to the 1,400 pages of documents, which also showed support for adding restrictions, such as tougher rules against exports of water and energy and to bar tobacco companies from suing governments.

=> ↺ A Developers Aims to Bring Bitcoin Payments for Retail By Integrating Lightning Network With NFC Technology

• One of the key areas where Bitcoin developers are working with all efforts is solving the scalability issue of the Bitcoin network. Lightning Network is the widely proposed solution in solving Bitcoin’s capability issue that allows for transactions to be taken off the Bitcoin blockchain thereby freeing up huge space in the Bitcoin network.

• While that developers have been actively working on the Lightning Network, they are also experimenting with other designs that make the payment system easier to use. Developer Igor Costa has recently submitted a proposal to standardize a way of connecting the Lightning Network with the Near-Field-Communication (NFC) technology. The developer claims that it could make the transactions seeds very fast making Bitcoin available for everyday retail payments.

• NFC is currently one of the widely used technology for contactless payments that lets the user pay for the item just by holding the smartphone a few inches away from the device it is paying to. NFC-based payments have become widely popular across Asia and Europe and can be made using not only smartphones but also using chips embedded in the payment cards.

=> ↺ What’s the Difference Between Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Gold, and Others?

• Despite their names, Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Gold, Bitcoin Diamond, Bitcoin Private, and others are not the same thing as Bitcoin. They’re based on Bitcoin, and are piggybacking on its name, but they’re different things. Here’s how to know which Bitcoin variant is which.

• Bitcoin is a decentralized cryptocurrency based on open source code. Anyone can take the code, modify it, and release their own version. That’s exactly how these other coins were created.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ The UK Refused To Raid A Company Suspected Of Money Laundering, Citing Its Tory Donations

• The British government refused to assist a French investigation into suspected money laundering and tax fraud by the UK telecoms giant Lycamobile – citing the fact that the company is the “biggest corporate donor to the Conservative party” and gives money to a trust founded by Prince Charles.

• French prosecutors launched a major probe into the firm and arrested 19 people accused of using its accounts to launder money from organised criminal networks two years ago, after BuzzFeed News revealed its suspicious financial activities in the UK. But the Conservatives continued taking Lycamobile’s money – and it can now be revealed that the British authorities stonewalled a formal request from French prosecutors to carry out raids in London as part of the ongoing investigation.

• Confidential correspondence between British government officials and their French counterparts, shown to BuzzFeed News by a source in the UK, reveals that the French wanted British authorities to raid Lycamobile’s London headquarters last year and seize evidence as part of their investigation into money laundering and tax fraud by the company.

• In an official response dated 30 March 2017, a government official noted that Lycamobile is “a large multinational company” with “vast assets at their disposal” and would be “extremely unlikely to agree to having their premises searched”.

=> ↺ NYT: Don’t Be Progressive, Be a ‘Liberal’

• A New York Times op-ed by political scientist (and former Bob Kerrey aide) Greg Weiner (7/13/18) may well be the New York Times–iest op-ed ever.

• Its ostensible subject is why Democrats should call themselves “liberals” and not “progressives.” But in making that case, it hits most of the main points of the New York Times‘ ideology—one that has guided the paper since the late 19th century.

• First and foremost, it’s a defense of the status quo. “The basic premise of liberal politics,” Weiner writes, “is the capacity of government to do good, especially in ameliorating economic ills.” But not too much good, mind you: “A liberal can believe that government can do more good or less,” he stresses. Weiner draws a contrast with progressives: “Where liberalism seeks to ameliorate economic ills, progressivism’s goal is to eradicate them.”

• So Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society is cited negatively as an example of “a progressive effort to remake society by eradicating poverty’s causes”—in the process supporting “community action” and financing the “political activism”—presented without explanation as a self-evident evil. The explanation, presumably, is that the poor should remain passive as they remain poor, gratefully accepting the handouts that “alleviate” their plight, as “cutting checks,” as Weiner puts it, is “something government does competently.”

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ Media personnel in Pakistan strongly condemn all forms of censorship

• Over 50 senior Pakistani journalists and media groups have signed a petition, expressing serious concern over “all forms of censorship” imposed by the management of media houses on free media and freedom of information, under pressure.

=> ↺ Wink & a Bitcoin: Roger Ver Offers Reddit $100k to Appoint New Moderator to Bitcoin Forum

• Early cryptocurrency investor and ardent Bitcoin Cash supporter Roger Ver is known for using his social media presence to stir the pot, and he lived up to that reputation this week.

• Ver, who owns Bitcoin.com and has signed on to the “Bitcoin Cash is Bitcoin” movement, offered to pay Reddit a bribe if the social media platform would appoint a moderator “who supports free speech” to the Bitcoin subreddit, which has long been one of the most popular Bitcoin forums.

=> ↺ Roger Ver’s censorship challenge to the Reddit community

• The older version allowed almost free transactions because BTC was so cheap back then and the number of users was also minimal. The main point of concern was any kind of foreign malware entering which could flood the network with transactions and cause system failure or slow down the system terribly with all the blocks occupied. An added advantage to the users would be the minimum fee costing them too little to pull off the perpetrator act. This would, in turn, cripple the entire BTC network which was still an infant.

=> ↺ Cancellation of controversial talk ‘brutal censorship’

• A controversial talk was cancelled for “health and safety” concerns, leading the speaker to believe he has been censored.

• Bruce Moon was invited by the Nelson Institute to speak and he chose to present on what he calls the “fake history” of New Zealand, focusing on the Treaty of Waitangi, its interpretation and its implementation.

• Days before his April 8 talk he was contacted by a Nelson Institute representative Paul Lunberg saying it would not be going ahead.

=> ↺ Google updates App Engine to discontinue support for domain-fronting

=> ↺ Google disables domain-fronting, removing ability to bypass state-level firewalls

=> ↺ Google’s App Engine No Longer Allows Domain Fronting, Creating a Huge Problem for Anti-Censorship Tools

=> ↺ Google disables “domain fronting” capability used to evade censors

=> ↺ Google Ends Domain-Fronting Feature Used by Censorship Tools

=> ↺ Google kills tool used to bypass strong internet censorship

=> ↺ A Recent Update from Google Could Severely Hamper Anti-Censorship Tools

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ NSA reveals how it beats 0-days

• In the ongoing cat-and-mouse game between nation states and attackers, anyone with something to protect has less time than ever to shore up their defenses.

• At this week’s RSA conference in San Francisco, Dave Hogue, technical director of the US National Security Agency (NSA), reviewed the organization’s best practices for defense – one of which is to “harden to best practices,” as the NSA often sees attacks against their systems within 24 hours of a new vulnerability being disclosed or discovered in the wild.

=> ↺ Mosque shooter’s search history shouldn’t be a cause for online censorship: expert

• Alexandre Bissonnette had scoured Twitter for right-wing commentators, conspiracy theorists, and white supremacists in the weeks before he killed six men inside a Quebec City mosque.

• The revelation at his sentencing hearing this week has raised questions about whether Canada is tough enough on online hate speech.

=> ↺ Facebook Is Using Dark Patterns To Undermine EU Privacy Rules

• GDPR, a new European privacy law, means users must explicitly give permission for most data collection. Facebook would like you to give them that permission.

• Lucky for Facebook they’re very good at getting people to do what they want. We talked last week about how tech companies use Dark Patterns to trick you, designing things to subtly push people into doing what benefits them.

=> ↺ A Tale of Two Poorly Designed Cross-Border Data Access Regimes

• On Tuesday, the European Commission published two legislative proposals that could further cement an unfortunate trend towards privacy erosion in cross-border state investigati­ons. Building on a foundation first established by the recently enacted U.S. CLOUD Act, these proposals compel tech companies and service providers to ignore critical privacy obligations in order to facilitate easy access when facing data requests from foreign governments. These initiatives collectively signal the increasing willingness of states to sacrifice privacy as a way of addressing pragmatic challenges in cross-border access that could be better solved with more training and streamlined processes.

=> ↺ New York Judge Makes the Wrong Call on Stingray Secrecy

• A New York judge has ruled that the public and the judiciary shouldn’t second-guess the police when it comes to secret snooping on the public with intrusive surveillance technologies.

• He couldn’t be more wrong.

• A core part of EFF’s mission is questioning the decisions of our law enforcement and intelligence agencies over digital surveillance. We’ve seen too many cases where police have abused databases, hidden the use of invasive technologies, targeted people exercising their First Amendment rights, disparately burdened immigrants and people of color, and captured massive amounts of unnecessary information on innocent people.

• We’re outraged about New York Judge Shlomo Hager’s recent ruling against the New York Civil Liberties Union in a public records case. The judge upheld the New York Police Department’s decision to withhold records about its purchases of cell-site simulator equipment (colloquially known as Stingrays), including the names of surveillance products and how much they cost taxpayers.

=> ↺ Hearing Monday in Groundbreaking Lawsuit Over Border Searches of Laptops and Smartphones

• EFF and ACLU Fight Government’s Move to Dismiss Case

• Boston – The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) will appear in federal court in Boston Monday, fighting the U.S. government’s attempts to block their lawsuit over illegal laptop and smartphone searches at the country’s borders.

• The case, Alasaad v. Nielsen, was filed last fall on behalf of 10 U.S. citizens and one lawful permanent resident who had their digital devices searched without a warrant. The lawsuit challenges the government’s fast-growing practice of searching travelers’ electronics at airports and other border crossings—often confiscating the items for weeks or months at a time—without any individualized suspicion that a traveler has done anything wrong.

=> ↺ France Testing Out Special Encrypted Messenger For Gov’t Officials As It Still Seeks To Backdoor Everyone Else’s Encryption

• The French government has been pushing for a stupid “backdoors” policy in encryption for quite some time. A couple years ago, following various terrorist attacks, there was talk of requiring backdoors to encrypted communications, and there was even a bill proposed that would jail execs who refused to decrypt data. Current President Emmanuel Macron has come out in favor of backdoors as well, even as he’s a heavy user of Telegram (which isn’t considered particularly secure encryption in the first place).

=> ↺ No boundaries for Facebook data: third-party trackers abuse Facebook Login

• So far in the No boundaries series, we’ve uncovered how web trackers exfiltrate identifying information from web pages, browser password managers, and form inputs.

=> ↺ ‘Facebook Login’ Feature Abused By Third-Party Trackers To Steal Data

• A new investigation reports that Facebook’s Login feature can be used to steal user information when you sign into third-party websites using your Facebook ID. This loophole allows many advertising and analytics services to harvest data for ad-targeting.

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ Chicago’s Gang Database Is Full of Errors — And Records We Have Prove It

• During January 1984, the Chicago Police Department labeled more than 700 people as suspected gang members following arrests for various crimes.

• One was in his early 30s and identified as a member of the Black P Stones.

• By last fall, nearly 34 years later, that individual was 77 — and still in what police commonly refer to as the department’s “gang database.”

• In fact, the 77-year-old was one of 163 people in their 70s or 80s in the database, which now includes information about 128,000 people and counting, according to records I obtained through a series of requests under the state Freedom of Information Act.

=> ↺ In Its Zeal to Deport Immigrants, the Justice Department Scraps Due Process

• In the past month, the Department of Justice has issued a series of stunningly senseless, wasteful, and cruel immigration policies. It ended a program to notify immigrants of their rights in deportation cases. It set an arbitrary and unreasonable quota for immigration judges. It enabled judges to make asylum decisions without a hearing. And it doubled down on a failed “zero tolerance” policy that aims to prosecute everyone accused of crossing the border without authorization.

=> ↺ Unsealed Warrant Shows FBI Investigated Michael Hayden For Leaking Info To Journalists

• And it is a very thin lead. All that’s included in the warrant affidavit [PDF] is the fact that Hayden engaged in email conversations with two unnamed reporters a total of 30 times in 18 months. Given his position, it’s surprising it didn’t happen more often. Officials are always contacted by reporters when writing about subjects/programs/etc. they oversee. In the affidavit, the special agent notes many of these contacts were to “confirm quotes” to be used in published articles and books.

• The inquiry here apparently centered on news of the Stuxnet virus and the US’s involvement in the cyberattack. The only quote about Stuxnet attributed to Hayden was fairly innocuous, stating only that this was the first time a cyberattack had been used to “effect physical destruction.”

=> ↺ On the Criminal Referral of Comey, Clinton et al: Will the Constitution Hold and the Media Continue to Suppress the Story?

• Ray McGovern reports on a major development in the Russia-gate story that has been ignored by corporate media: a criminal referral to the DOJ against Hillary Clinton, James Comey and others, exposing yet again how established media suppresses news it doesn’t like–about as egregious an example of unethical journalism as there is.

=> ↺ The War On Whistleblowers Claims Another Casualty

• Another whistleblower will be going to jail. Thanks to the application of the Espionage Act, former FBI special agent Terry Albury wasn’t able to defend his leaking of FBI internal documents to journalists (most likely The Intercept) by claiming he leaked to expose noxious FBI tactics and behavior. Defenses predicated on public interest aren’t allowed in Espionage Act trials, meaning Albury’s decision to plead guilty is there to limit the number of years he’ll spend incarcerated, rather than an indication his leaks were meant to harm the government.

• Albury’s attorneys released this statement to the Columbia Journalism Review shortly after his court hearing.

=> ↺ Court’s Ruling Holding Kobach in Contempt Is Well-Deserved

• The time is up for Kobach to follow the law.

• In a scathing decision issued on Wednesday evening, a federal judge held Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach in contempt for repeatedly and willfully disobeying court orders that he comply with federal voting rights law.

• The contempt ruling by Chief Judge Julie Robinson, who was appointed by George W. Bush, follows years of attempts by Kobach to evade, undermine, or ignore the court’s directive that he register and notify all eligible voters in accordance with the National Voter Registration Act. The judge lambasted Kobach for his “history of noncompliance and disrespect for the Court’s decisions in this case.”

=> ↺ FBI Whistleblower Convicted of Leaking Documents in “Act of Conscience”

• In Minnesota, an FBI whistleblower who leaked classified information about how the bureau aggressively targets potential informants pleaded guilty Tuesday to charges of unauthorized disclosure. Terry J. Albury, who was the only African-American agent at the FBI’s field office in Minneapolis, called his leaks an “an act of conscience” aimed at calling out racism at the bureau. He faces up to 10 years in prison, but is likely to receive less than 5 under a plea deal.

=> ↺ ‘We Need to Change the Rules for When Police Can Shoot’

• Janine Jackson: Amy Hughes was not suspected of a crime. She was standing still, outside of her home in Tucson, holding a kitchen knife by her side. Three police officers, responding to a “check welfare” call about a woman hacking at a tree, arrived and saw Hughes’ roommate, Sharon Chadwick, in the yard, and Hughes some six feet away from her. An officer yelled at Hughes to drop the knife. It’s not clear whether she heard.

• Neither two of the three officers called to the scene, nor Chadwick herself, felt that Hughes was threatening. The third cop, Andrew Kisela, felt differently, and without warning shot Hughes four times through a chain-link fence. She survived, and did not go quietly, suing for the violation of her Fourth Amendment rights. The Supreme Court, however, has just ruled that Kisela can’t be sued, that he’s covered by something called “qualified immunity.”

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ A Little Help for Our Friends

• In periods like this one, when governments seem to ignore the will of the people as easily as companies violate their users’ trust, it’s important to draw strength from your friends. EFF is glad to have allies in the online freedom movement like the Internet Archive. Right now, donations to the Archive will be matched automatically by the Pineapple Fund.

• Founded 21 years ago by Brewster Kahle, the Internet Archive’s mission is to provide free and universal access to knowledge through its vast digital library. Their work has helped capture the massive—yet now too often ephemeral—proliferation of human creativity and knowledge online. Popular tools like the Wayback Machine have allowed people to do things like view deleted and altered webpages and recover public statements to hold officials accountable.

• EFF and the Internet Archive have stood together in a number of digital civil liberties cases. We fought back when the Archive became the recipient of a National Security Letter, a tool often used by the FBI to force Internet providers and telecommunications companies to turn over the names, addresses, and other records about their customers, and frequently accompanied by a gag order. EFF and the Archive have worked together to fight threats to free expression, online innovation, and the free flow of information on the Internet on numerous occasions. We have even collaborated on community gatherings like EFF’s own Pwning Tomorrow speculative fiction launch and the recent Barlow Symposium exploring EFF co-founder John Perry Barlow’s philosophy of the Internet.

Intellectual Monopolies

=> ↺ How China became a leader in intellectual property

• As the tit-for-tat trade war between China and the United States escalates, you might be forgiven for assuming that intellectual property (IP) rights and protections barely exist in China. Yet, despite its reputation as an inveterate bootlegger, trademark squatter and state sponsor of corporate espionage, China is on course to becoming an IP powerhouse.

• “Over the past decade, China has demonstrated serious resolve to enforce an effective IP rights regime, and to bring the system in line with other developed systems in the US and Europe,” says Xingye Huang, associate at trademark and patent attorneys Abel & Imray. Indeed, China is on track to achieving its 2020 strategic goal laid out in 2008 of attaining a comparatively high level in terms of the creation, utilisation, protection and administration of IP rights.

• [...]

• According to the latest figures from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) from 2015, China filed the most patents of any country worldwide. In 2017, Chinese companies registered more than 1.3 million patents,

=> ↺ ABA Provides Guidance on Required Disclosure of Attorney Errors

• On April 17th, the American Bar Association provided a formal opinion regarding the requirement that attorneys disclose errors to clients. Its opinion was based on Rule 1.4 of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct, which governs communications with clients. The ABA concluded that attorneys have a duty to disclose material errors to clients, but no duty to disclose errors to former clients. In this context, an error is material if a disinterested attorney would believe that the error would likely cause harm or prejudice to the client, or that the error would reasonably cause a client to consider terminating the practitioner’s representation — even if there would be no prejudice to the client.

=> ↺ Public interest in Plant Variety Rights. How high is the bar for the grant of a compulsory license?

• On 16 March 2017, the Office received an application for a compulsory licence by Pixley Berries (Juice) Limited ( “the applicant”) pursuant to Article 29 of Council Regulation (EC) No 2100/94 of 27 July 1994 on Community plant variety rights (Basic Regulation) (the Council Regulation (EC) No 2100/94 of 27 July 1994),.

=> ↺ Invention Disclosure to In-House Counsel Privileged

• Is an invention disclosure submitted by an inventor to an in-house attorney for procurement of a patent covered by attorney-client privilege? The Central District of California held in The California Institute of Technology v. Broadcom Limited, et al., No. CV 16-3714-GW (C.D. Cal. Mar. 19, 2018) that invention disclosures sent to in-house attorneys are covered by attorney-client privilege.

=> ↺ Coffin Patent Lives on after IPR

• The Federal Circuit agreed with the Patent Trial & Appeal Board that the claim language “form a casket body” was a structural limitation, not an intended use, and affirmed the final written decision of PTAB finding that the inter parte review petitioner failed to demonstrate that the claims were unpatentable. Matthews International Corp. v. Vandor Corp. (Fed. Cir., decided March 27, 2018).

=> ↺ Women have worse outcomes in virtually all respects when it comes to securing US patent rights, study finds

• Not only do women inventors submit far fewer US patent applications than men, but they also have much greater difficulty in obtaining and maintaining rights, a new study has revealed. The first-of-its-kind research found that female applicants are more likely to have their applications rejected and less likely to appeal these rejections. Women also had fewer claims allowed on average, while their granted patents received fewer citations and were less likely to be maintained.

• [...]

• Women with rarer names were significantly less disadvantaged than those with common names when it came to having their applications accepted. Future applicants also cited the patents of women with common names 30% less often than the patents of men with common names; in contrast, women with rare names had their patents cited 20% more than the patents of men with rare names.

=> ↺ India moves towards Form 27 reform

• India’s Patent Office is gathering input on reforming Form 27. IP practitioners hope changes to the burdensome statement regarding the working of the patented invention will come this year

Trademarks

=> ↺ Last Minute Trademark Infringement Claims Do Not “Ferryboat” Pendent Venue for Patent Infringement Claims

• The court granted one defendant’s alternative motion to transfer plaintiff’s claims against it for improper venue and rejected plaintiff’s attempt to establish pendent venue by asserting trademark claims in its amended complaint.

=> ↺ Caymus Vineyard Sues Caymus Builders Because It Built Some Buildings For Its Wine Business

• Look, trademark law can be confusing. If you’re not spending some significant portion of your life either practicing trademark law or writing about trademark law, you might misunderstand how it works. In particular, the requirement for entities to be in the same business or market often times trips people up, with them either not realizing that this provision exists for there to be trademark infringement in most cases, or else not understanding exactly what it means to be competing in the same marketplace.

=> ↺ Napa’s Caymus Vineyards sues Sonoma’s Caymus companies for trademark infringement

• The name “Caymus” has become familiar to Sonomans under a different context than the name holds in neighboring Napa Valley.

• And that, says Caymus Vineyards in Napa, is grounds for a lawsuit.

• According to a filing in San Francisco’s U.S. District Court, dated March 2, Sonoma’s Caymus Capital is being sued, along with other related parties, by Caymus Vineyards of Napa.

• The suit cites the defendants’ “unauthorized and unlawful use of Plaintiff’s famous, incontestable federal trademark registration for the mark ‘Caymus’ and Plaintiff’s corporate and trade name ‘Caymus Vineyards.’”

Copyrights

=> ↺ German FCJ declares AdBlock Plus legal

• Germany’s Federal Court of Justice has today decided in a year-long dispute between the German news publisher Axel-Springer-Verlag and Eyeo, the Cologne-based company behind AdBlock Plus.

=> ↺ Dear Canada: Accessing Publicly Available Information on the Internet Is Not a Crime

• Canadian authorities should drop charges against a 19-year-old Canadian accused of “unauthorized use of a computer service” for downloading thousands of public records hosted and available to all on a government website. The whole episode is an embarrassing overreach that chills the right of access to public records and threatens important security research.

• At the heart of the incident, as reported by CBC news this week, is the Nova Scotian government’s embarrassment over its own failure to protect the sensitive data of 250 people who used the province’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to request their own government files. These documents were hosted on the government web server that also hosted public records containing no personal information. Every request hosted on the server contained very similar URLs, which differed only in a single document ID number at the end of the URL. The teenager took a known ID number, and then, by modifying the URL, retrieved and stored all of the FOIA documents available on the Nova Scotia FOIA website.

=> ↺ Publisher Helps To Keep Sci-Hub In The Public Eye By Trying To Bully It Into Submission Using Ineffectual Legal Remedies

• As Techdirt has pointed out a number of times, attacking the huge free online repository of academic papers, Sci-Hub, is wrong from a number of viewpoints. It’s wrong because Sci-Hub is not a site aiming to profit from the labor of others, but is simply trying to make knowledge accessible to everyone. That’s also what academic publishers like to claim they are doing, except that strangely many of the largest end up with profit margins of 30%-40%, and the papers aren’t accessible to all, just to those rich enough to pay the “egregious price increases” that roll in every year. It’s wrong because most of the research published was paid for by the public through their taxes, who surely ought to be able to access it from convenient repositories that are as easy to use as Sci-Hub. It’s also provided free of charge for publishers to repackage, often with few changes. And yet the latter want people to pay again, typically $30 for a single article.

=> ↺ Of Course The RIAA Would Find A Way To Screw Over The Public In ‘Modernizing’ Copyright

• I haven’t had a chance to write much about the latest attempt to update copyright law in the US, under the title of the “Music Modernization Act,” but in part that was because Congress did something amazing: it came up with a decent solution to modernizing some outdated aspects of copyright law, that almost everyone agreed were pretty decent ideas for improvement. The crux of the bill was making music licensing easier and much clearer, which is very much needed, giving what a complete shit show music licensing is today.

• There was a chance to have this actually create a nice solution that would help artists, help online music services and generally make more works available to the public. It was a good thing. But… leave it to the RIAA to fuck up a good thing. You see, with there being pretty much universal support for the Music Modernization Act, the RIAA stepped in and pushed for it to be combined with a different copyright reform, known as the “CLASSICS Act.”

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