● 01.13.11

● Links 13/1/2011: ‘Operation Linux’ in Spain, Ubuntu and Dell Unite, Red Hat Expands

Posted in News Roundup at 2:03 pm by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

• With the biggest “partner” of Wintel criticizing the developments of the mother-ship, how long can the Wintel monopoly last? Intel will find that GNU/Linux runs well on Intel as on ARM and Intel will find it profitable to be partner of GNU/Linux. It’s all good.

• The Spanish Ministry of the Interior has expressed its regret that an international crackdown on IT masterminds inside the violent Basque separatist group ETA was dubbed “Operation Linux”.

• Apparently, penguin-loving outfits are complaining that the antiterrorist operation sullies their good name.

Server

• Dubbed the Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud (UEC), it will be available from Dell this week as the Dell Canonical UEC Solution. We hope that it does not mean that the servers will be all wet.

• Mark Shuttleworth, the ever gracious founder of Ubuntu, stopped by Dell this morning to talk to various folks about various subjects. I was able to grab some time with him between meetings and get his thoughts on a few topics.

• Shuttleworth said that he is encouraged to see standardization taking place in the cloud computing space, and clearly remains positive about both OpenStack and Eucalyptus. Clearly, Shuttleworth also likes the idea of open cloud standards.

• Ubuntu 10.04 LTS 64-bit (Server version is supported, desktop version will also work but not supported by Zimbra.) This tutorial uses Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Desktop System.

Audiocasts/Shows

• In this episode: Firefox overtakes Internet Explorer in Europe while Android overtakes iPhone in the US, and TransGaming transforms Cedega into the GameTree Developer Program. Discover our new section and hear your own opinions in our Open Ballot.

Kernel Space

• Some “older” Linux distributions don’t even recognize it. And it’s not that new, I understand. In both OpenBSD and FreeBSD I have to “conjure” it to life by setting the media type. Otherwise it stays dark.

Applications

• In the face of all sorts of rumours and interpretations about the future of the project there is a call for clarification regarding development of GIMP.

• Currently GIMP team is working on finalizing the new stable v2.8 with many improvements such as layer groups, improved brush dynamics, a new unique transformation tool, optional single-window mode and more. There are two big obstacles in our way right now: missing specification on the last change in user interface and broken graphic tablets support in GTK+.

• We have already invested a lot of time into UI changes and brush dynamics, we treasure your continuous support for the project and thus we are determined to release v2.8 only when it’s working out of box as expected for everybody.

• One key area of frustration for newcomers to the Linux OS is using document scanners. Most hardware makers do not provide Linux drivers on discs that accompany their scanner models. So Linux users have to struggle to find solutions on distro-specific help forums.

• Linux does not support the TWAIN-compatible drivers popular in the Windows world. So the trick in obtaining scanning success is to use a scanner device that is compatible with Xsane, a scanner interface that uses the Scanner Access Now Easy driver.

• Few weeks ago we did show you apt-fast, a little shellscript that increases the speed of apt-get by many times. Thanks to sourceslist Team , apt-fast got an interface named 1blink-updater to simply install apt-fast, to integrate it with Synaptic and to perform updates.

Instructionals/Technical

Wine

• New winetricks 20110105: improved download error recovery, added first-run optin dialog. New winetricks 20110105-alpha: menu divided into categories, added 35 games.

• Another month, another Winetricks – or, rather, two new Winetricks.

• Bordeaux entered the Wine services market in early 2008 and gained a foothold through its strength in marketing, branding and the technology expertise of a limited partnership with Wine-Reviews Inc.

Games

• Hexen: Edge of Chaos is a new game that is based on popular game Doom 3. Developed by fans of the Hexen series the game is a hack ‘n’ slash game inspired the original Hexen game.

• Ubuntu Gamer reader ‘Cliff’ hit up our tip form to let us know about a game called H-Craft Championship, a sci-fi racer developed by indie developers Irrgheist.

• H-Craft is a futuristic hovercraft racing game which sees players compete in championships to level up and unlock new vehicles to race with.

Desktop Environments

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)

• I know that some people bemoan the fact that these precious Linux jewels are now available for Windows users. They think that it lessens the need for people to move to Linux. However, I think that Linux is still a better OS for most people.

• While digiKam doesn’t allow you to publish photos directly to a WordPress blog, you can work around this limitation. Enable the Post by Email feature on your WordPress blog, and you can use the SendImages Kipi plugin in digiKam to email photos directly to your blog.

• To make this workaround work, you have to prepare your WordPress blog first. If you host your blog on WordPress.com, navigate to Dashboard | My Blogs and press the Enable button to activate the Post by Email feature. This will automatically generate a unique email address where you send your photos.

Distributions

Red Hat Family

• Red Hat (NYSE: RHT) will keep its corporate headquarters in Wake County and add more than 500 jobs in the next five years, officials said Monday.

• Red Hat Inc. has decided to keep its trademark fedora hanging in North Carolina, declining the overtures of other states Monday as it announced it will build its next corporate headquarters in the Raleigh area and create more than 500 new jobs over the next decade.

Fedora

• I was initially a KDE user, but for a long time, I’ve been using GNOME on Ubuntu. This is because there has always been some serious bug or the other in KDE, ever since the team overhauled the desktop. I have waited with eager anticipation for a bug-free KDE and a distro that would serve it in a nice package, but have had no luck. Even when KDE became usable again with version 4.3, no distro did it right. But when Fedora released version 14 on 2nd November, I had an uncanny feeling that this would be the distro I was waiting for. Yes, it was!

• However, what bowled me over first was not KDE—it was the new Fedora website. Never have I seen such an outstanding presentation of free and open source software, or of an operating system, done so meticulously.

Debian Family

• I did a full review earlier of Linux Mint Debian Edition and loved it. Now there’s an update to it and I couldn’t resist doing a quick look. If you aren’t familiar with the Debian version of Linux Mint, you’re in for a real treat. LMDE has quickly become my favorite Linux distribution. It’s a great blend of Debian and Linux Mint.

• [...]

• As I noted above, I really enjoy Linux Mint Debian Edition. It really has become my distro of choice, for now. It combines the power of Debian with all of the Linux Mint tools & features. Of course, I will still continue to distrohop because you never know when another distro could tickle your fancy just a bit more.

Canonical/Ubuntu

• I can recommend Ubuntu. But I cannot recommend Gentoo. Why? Because all of this trouble and downtime was caused by an update. An update that Portage did at some point earlier. It was part of a whole system update. If the system had never been rebooted, I would still not know it. I would have no clue that the thing would not have booted up in the event of a power failure or whatever.

• And that’s the problem. Linux was created by geeks, grown and nurtured by geeks, and unless something is done fairly soon to change the presentation and the image, it will remain a system for geeks. The only one doing very much about that at this moment is Mark Shuttleworth, who has invested his fortune, his time, and his vision to create SOMETHING that can present a real challenge to the Windows hegemony.

• And Canonical’s emphasis on customization is an important point. So far, much of the hype surrounding the cloud has centered on the efficiency, ease of deployment and accessibility of cloud-based machines, with relatively little attention afforded to the extent to which users can customize software running in the cloud. cloud-init’s chief selling point, meanwhile, is the customizability it guarantees for Ubuntu-based cloud images.

• In this sense, Canonical’s strategy for the cloud seems to stand out in unique ways. Whether it will pay off remains to be seen, but this is a topic to watch closely as the cloud develops.

• Ubuntu Control Center is a nice simple application to sort things out easily and intuitively in Ubuntu. It is originally inspired from Mandriva Control Center and aims to centralize and organize the main configuration tools available in Ubuntu.

Flavours and Variants

• In my quest to make Linux Mint 10 by sole operating system, I needed to bring over two contact lists into Mozilla Thunderbird, which is the default email software installed with Mint 10. I have been using Mozilla Thunderbird on my Windows 7 system and I found that I like T-bird very much. I exported both of my contact lists from Outlook 2007 and T-Bird and copied the files over as .csv format. Before importing the files, I opened both and trimmed down the majority of fields, since I just wanted the names and email addresses of my contacts. The import went well and after merging both contact lists, I had the names and email addresses I needed.

• MoonOS, an Ubuntu based Linux distro, recently hit version 4, codenamed “Neake”. This last release certainly marks a turning point for MoonOS, for it includes several drastic changes that set it appart from previous releases and even from other Linux distributions.

• I’ve had a couple of encounters with #! before, starting with this review of version 9.04.01 and including this review of version 10 “Statler” Openbox (Alpha 2). I was pleasantly surprised by the features and minimalistic beauty of version 9.04.01, and I was later slightly let down by the relative lack of polish and removal of some features in version 10 (Alpha 2). Now, the #! developers have come out with a (actually, two) post-alpha release(s) of version 10 “Statler”.

• Barry Kauler, the father of Puppy Linux, announced earlier today, January 6th, the immediate availability of Puppy Linux 5.2, a major version that is compatible with the popular Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (Lucid Lynx) operating system.

• Puppy Linux 5.2 features lots of updated and improved applications, the new Quickset dialog to easily setup your system (language/locale and keyboard settings, timezone, video resolution), Browser Installer, Browser-Default, Quickpet, improved Puppy Package Manager, and a lot more for you to discover.

Devices/Embedded

Phones

Android

• Yes, Apple’s iPhone is popular, and yes it looks like Verizon is finally going to release an iPhone, but Android phones have turned out to be even more popular.

• Well, now we know. You can’t sell software using the General Public License (GPL) on the Apple App Store& because it conflicts with its Terms of Service (ToS) . The popular VLC media player, was the first major GPLed software to be pulled from Apple’s App Store, it won’t be the last. But, what about Google’s Android Market? I asked the experts and they tell me that, in general, GPL developers can offer their wares on Android.

• In year 2007 The Open Handset Alliance was formed, which includes Google and other 33 companies. The aim of The Open Handset Alliance is to bring innovation into mobile devices and thus giving consumers a much better user experience.

• At the same time, mobile application developers are given an opportunity to freely participate in Android application development using alliance’s Android Software Development Kit ( SDK ) which is released through Google’s developer website. Developers are therefore, free to develop any Android application they see fit and are free to market it to all Android mobile phone owners. This article will consist of four main sections:

• 1. Installation of Eclipse IDE, Oracle Java JRE, Android SDK and Android Developer Tool (ADT) a special Eclipse plug-in 2. Setting up Eclipse IDE with Android SDK and Android Developer Tool 3. Writing a simple Android Application: “Hello Android” 4. Testing Android application using Android Virtual Device

• Honeycomb, Android 3.0, is the star of CES so far.

• The GTVHacker dev team has won a cash bounty for being the first to successfully root and enable third-party application support on a Google TV device before Google – Google will reportedly be bringing support for Android applications to the platform some time later this year. According to developer Howard Harte, who originally announced the bounty at the end of November last year, the GTVHacker team used a hardware hack, adding serial console support to the UART1 header on the Logitech Revue, to enable root and install third-party apps on Google TV.

• Cisco Systems unveiled a suite of Linux-based “Videoscape” IPTV hardware and software that blends TV and web content a la Google TV. Meanwhile, Verizon Wireless plans to ship 4G LTE versions of Cisco’s Android-based, enterprise-focused Cius tablet and Linux-based ISR routers.

Tablets

• Not that tablets makers will have an easy ride. As the plethora of models on display show, for every Samsung Galaxy Tab, Motorola Xoom, RIM BlackBerry PlayBook, Dell Streak 7 and Asus Eee Pad Slider, there are countless no-name offerings. Of these a fair few are poor, some good, but all run the same operating system with the same UI, sport the same ports, and have the same basic look.

• Intel’s Oak Trail platform consists of a Lincroft-based processor and Whitney Point chipset, targeting mainly tablet PCs and netbooks and is able to support any operating systems available on the market including Android.

• Dell announced a seven-inch Android 2.2 tablet called the Streak 7, featuring a dual-core Nvidia Tegra 2 processor, dual cameras, and compatibility with T-Mobile’s 4G-like HSPA+ network. The company also announced an unlocked, GSM-ready “Dell Venue” smartphone that runs Android 2.2 on a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, with a 4.1-inch AMOLED display and eight-megapixel camera.

Free Software/Open Source

• While the United States seemed to move from a possible OpenID login to more of a “secure” intranet approach, Russia has moved from commercial software to open source. The two moves may not seem to have much in common, but they do. Control.

• Under the banner of security, the U.S. has announced the creation of a “verified” ID program that looks for all the world like a walled, or at least fenced, section of the Internet. Russia has moved to open source not out of a philosophical belief in free software, but out of fear of American software hegemony.

Events

• Australia’s annual Linux.conf.au conference in Brisbane will go off as scheduled, despite massive floods bearing down on the Queensland, Australia city, according to the conference’s website today.

Web Browsers

• Google on Tuesday said that it plans to drop support for the H.264 video codec in its Chrome browser and to embrace WebM, the video codec that it acquired in 2009 and released last year as open source software.

Mozilla

• Firefox 4 is nearly ready for showtime, according to a recent post on Mozilla’s mailing list.

Programming

• There is one thing PHP desperately needs — an easy to use built-in web server. Every semester, as I face a new room full of hopeful newbies, I deal with one of the major pain points of PHP development — that PHP is worthless without a web server. I end up spending valuable time talking about Apache, when I should be talking about PHP.

• I use Subversion in my day job as a technical writer for a software company. I use Ubuntu (9.10 Karmic Koala) and connect to the subversion repository via the shell. This is pretty much how the book was written, so all of the commands and tasks really fit my personal situation. Not only that, but the level of complexity (or lack thereof, if you’re a total subversion guru) is right at my level.

• We are excited to announce that ActiveState is the proud recipient of an InfoWorld Technology of the Year Award! Komodo IDE has been named Best Python IDE, coming out on top against nine other Python IDEs tested. Komodo specifically got top points for ease of installation, documentation and ease of use–things that we pride ourselves on as well.

Leftovers

• AMD starting to develop display processors to support ARM architectures is correct in terms of marketability and market potential, but its pace is too slow compared with Nvidia’s success with Tegra 2, according to Taiwan-based notebook makers.

• Indecision by Haiti’s government and international donors’ single-minded pursuit of their own goals have crippled progress in earthquake-ravaged Haiti, a highly critical Oxfam report says.

• “This has been a year of indecision and it has put Haiti’s recovery on hold,” said Roland Van Hauwermeiren, country director for the aid agency in Haiti.

• The Obama administration said Friday it could support throwing out the disputed results of Haiti’s first-round presidential election if that step is proposed by a panel of experts examining the vote.

• The international response to the earthquake that struck Haiti nearly a year ago was immediate and massive. The devastation was massive as well: The quake killed more than 200,000 people, injured more than 300,000, destroyed more than 250,000 homes and displaced more than 1.5 million people, 1 million of whom are still living in makeshift shelters in hundreds of camps.

• The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals just ruled [PDF] that Novell under the 1995 APA transferred to Santa Cruz “only the UNIXWARE product business and the portion of the UNIX source-code business that Novell retained following the Licensing Agreement — which did not include the UNIX trademark”, which went to X/Open.

Defence/Police/Aggression

• Christina Taylor Green’s life has been ripped away from her. Her family and community will be devastated by the loss of this beautiful nine year old child. They need the opportunity to grieve in peace.

• There is nothing stopping protesters from holding their own public memorial service, or rally. Then it would be an appropriate public thing.

• Protesting at a private funeral can do is to further harm the people who are already harmed, exploiting the tragedy. Some people seek to do that. Even though it harms the public good.

• Human society allows government the facility to enact laws so that it can support the public good. And sometimes it happens that governments do just that.

• We are still being fed “The Governments version of the TRUTH” about incidents in Iraq. Sadly today’s “Media Mafia” seems to be content to let Big Brother control the flow of information.

• A full one-third of women veterans report rape or attempted rape during their time in the military. The investigation into these incidents are often more like a cover-up story than a fully transparent investigation. A good example of the cloaked “government truth” type of investigation is illustrated by what happened in Pfc LaVena Johnson’s case.

• I have just come back to France this Wednesday afternoon 22 December after being expelled in the middle of the night by the Israeli government, after being interrogated for 30 hours, detained and an attempt to forcefully ship me into planes, before I was able to meet with a female lawyer and warn the French Consulate.

• Nick Clegg today promised to end virtual house arrest, contained in the current anti-terror control orders regime, but for the first time admitted that the government will retain restrictions for a small group of terror suspects who cannot be prosecuted in the British courts.

• The former Labour home secretary John Reid, a supporter of control orders, said it was clear the deputy prime minister was backing off from plans to abolish the central thrust of the measures.

• Israel is sliding down a slippery slope. A country that imprisons its Jonathan Pollaks will end up with jails filled with ‘opponents of the regime.’

Cablegate

• Throughout 2010 whistleblower website WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange were making headlines with the release of classified documents. Both the leaks and the controversy surrounding Assange have been covered extensively by the media.

• I am writing to request that you undertake an immediate review to determine whether WikiLeaks could be designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) in accordance with Section 210 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). In addition, I urge you to work with the Swedish government to determine the means by which Mr. Julian Assange can be brought to justice for his actions while recognizing and respecting Swedish sovereign law.

• Since WikiLeaks released the US embassy cables on 28 November 2009 it has come under pressure on several fronts, from DDoS attacks to frozen bank accounts. We list the companies, politicians and organisations making life difficult for WikiLeaks and Julian Assange

• WikiLeaks: Swedish government ‘hid’ anti-terror operations with America from Parliament by Andrew Hough, and Christopher Hope in the Telegraph.

• The Swedish government asked American officials to keep intelligence-gathering “informal” to help avoid Parliamentary scrutiny, American diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks show.

• In the complaint filed on 6th January, Pitchford alleges that Assange’s negligence has caused “hypertension”, “depression” and “living in fear of being stricken by another heart attack and/or stroke” as a result of living “in fear of being on the brink of another nucliar [sic] WAR”.

Environment/Energy/Wildlife

• The wrecked Deepwater Horizon rig, ablaze 50 miles off Louisiana last week, is spilling an estimated 5,000 barrels of oil a day in what may be the US worst environmental disaster. Photograph: Gerald Herbert/AP

• BP is more likely to escape the potentially ruinous charge of gross negligence, according to City analysts, after a powerful US commission blamed “systemic” causes for the Gulf of Mexico disaster.

• Barack Obama’s national commission released part of its final report into the disaster last night on Wednesday night. The report, to be published next week, could influence several other parallel investigations into the spill that are yet to finish.

• Japan and the US proposed to investigate and act against international anti-whaling activists from the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society as part of a political deal to reduce whaling in Antarctic waters.

• Four confidential cables from the US embassy in Tokyo and the state department in Washington, released by WikiLeaks, show US and Japanese diplomats secretly negotiating a compromise agreement ahead of a key meeting last year of the International Whaling Commission, the body that regulates international whaling.

• The American proposal would have forced Japan to reduce the number of whales that Japan killed each year in the Antarctic whale sanctuary in return for the legal right to hunt other whales off its own coasts. In addition, the US proposed to ratify laws that would “guarantee security in the seas” – a reference to acting against groups such as Sea Shepherd that have tried to physically stop whaling.

• Dirty Business, the new documentary from the Centre for Investigative Journalism, began its nationwide screening tour last night in Berkeley, California, with the aim of debunking the myth of “clean coal” and kick-starting a debate on the future of energy in the US.

• The film shows scarred mountains, abandoned family homes on remote hillsides, water courses toxic with sludge, respiratory fatalities and children whose growth has been stunted by pollution as some of the side effects of coal extraction and the power stations that burn it. And, of course, it shows the effect of coal combustion on global temperatures.

• Gasoline prices are rising, averaging 41 cents higher a gallon than last year, so once again we are hearing the familiar refrain that this means we need to drill more.

• A federal judge’s decision today to allow a state agency to move forward with a plan to open a Texas dump to radioactive waste from at least 36 states is bad news for Texans.

• After a lengthy hearing, Judge Sam Sparks of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas voided a Dec. 30 temporary restraining order issued by a state court in Austin. That order would have kept the Texas Low Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission (TLLRWDCC) from voting Tuesday on a plan to allow a low-level waste dump near Andrews Texas to take radioactive waste from 36 or more states.

Finance

• I believe that economic theory is merely a construct of “man” (not woman) and that there are alternative views of economics (all purporting to be an answer to something or other) but these concerns are not necessarily mutally exclusive. Man makes the theory; man makes the rules that govern the theory; and man changes the rules as he sees fit. Economics is not scientifically based in the way that the theory of evolution is. If it were (scientifically based) it would take into account the economic value of a woman who stays home and looks after her children. In fact, a good economy would pay that woman a living wage.

• I do not think it matters if the average person like me thinks that if the deficit is huge that future generations will have to pay more taxes or that my check to pay my health care taxes is actually torn up by the government when they receive it. In fact, I get a great deal of satisfaction thinking that I am paying my health care expenses through the earnings from my own labor and by paying my taxes. I am also, incidentally, helping society as a whole as my tax dollars will assist those less well off to receive health care too. It is my commitment as a citizen of my country.

• Higher unemployment and foreclosure rates, especially in South Atlantic and Mountain states, raised the nation’s economic stress in November, according to The Associated Press’ monthly analysis.

• Federal prosecutors portrayed a California financial research firm as an incubator for insider trading as an eighth person connected to the company pleaded guilty Tuesday to securities fraud charges.

• Big banks and other financial players are gearing up for new regulations in the next few weeks on the “Volcker rule” that are designed to curb “proprietary trading” by banks using their own cash without depriving the financial system of needed capital.

• In recent months, as Goldman has fended off widespread accusations that it has become the leading example of the gambling culture permeating Wall Street — placing bets for its own profit rather than engaging in old-fashioned banking services — the company has insisted that trading made up no more than one-tenth of its revenues.

• During a conference call last year, the firm’s chief financial officer, David Viniar, described the company’s private trades as comprising “10-ish type of percent” of its total revenues.

• The rich treated themselves like royalty this holiday season. That spun the holidays into gold for Tiffany & Co. and other high-end retailers.

• Wealthier shoppers traded up to more expensive gold and diamond jewelry from silver charms. Designer clothing and purses were back.

• Barack Obama has begun a major overhaul of his inner circle, lending the White House a more business-friendly face with the appointment of an outsider banker, William Daley, as his chief of staff.

• Daley continues the heavy Chicago bent of Obama’s White House. He is the son of the late Richard Daley, who was mayor of Chicago for two decades, and brother of the even longer-serving outgoing current mayor of Chicago, also Richard.

• Unlike bankers, US labour unions had nothing to do with the economic crisis – yet they’re the ones now being scapegoated

• Today, with unemployment in almost the double digits and foreclosure unabated, President Obama decided that America needed more of the same. The President announced the appointment of JPMorgan Executive William M. Daley as White House Chief of Staff, replacing Rahm Emanuel. Tomorrow, news reports indicate that he will announce that Goldman Sachs adviser Gene B. Sperling will be appointed head of the National Economic Council, replacing Larry Summers.

Censorship/Privacy/Civil Rights

• If you get arrested in California, better hope there are no incriminating texts or e-mails or sensitive data stored on your phone.

• On Monday, the California Supreme Court ruled that police in that state can search the contents of an arrested person’s cell phone.

• Citing U.S. Supreme Court precedents, the ruling contends that “The loss of privacy upon arrest extends beyond the arrestee’s body to include ‘personal property … immediately associated with the person of the arrestee’ at the time of arrest.”

• Seeing her frail figure, looking much older than her 38 years, one wonders “Why is she doing this?” This is a lost battle, because the state is stronger than she is. She could be India’s Aung San Suu Ki – but because India is a “democracy”, not a dictatorship, hers will never be an international cause célèbre. Irom Sharmila lives in Manipur, in the north-east, and has been on a fast-unto-death for the past decade as a protest against the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act. AFSPA was imposed in Manipur decades ago as a bulwark against insurgency.

• Venezuelan lawmakers on Monday imposed broadcast-type regulations on the Internet, barring some types of online messages under measures that opponents say are a threat to freedom speech.

• President Hugo Chavez’s allies in the National Assembly approved the revised “Social Responsibility Law,” which extends rules for broadcast media to the Internet.

Internet/Net Neutrality/DRM

• It seems that Sony executives either hadn’t been paying attention to the reports, or simply discounted them as another easily-corrected security hole, as they had not released any type of statement regarding the discovery until today.

• After reading the statement that Sony provided to Edge Magazine, it appears that it is more likely the latter scenario.

• It looks like Sony has found its much-needed solution to the recent breaking of the DRM key in its PlayStation 3 console, and it’s not very technical: the company has filed suit against those responsible for highlighting its security ineptitude.

• We have seen a lot of wasted energy in the legal system over the years but Sony takes the cake. They are suing folks who revealed Sony’s utterly inept use of encryption to lock down the PlayStation3. They also sought an injunction blocking release/distribution of the encryption key that was found by reverse engineering. On the farm, we called that closing the gate after the horse had left.

• This apparently allows unauthorised parties to decompile, modify and renew the signature of the PS3′s firmware. It allegedly also allows any type of software to be signed for non-modified PS3 consoles, which causes this software to be recognised as legal and enables it to be played back on such consoles. The first PS3 games that were copied illegally, based on the hack, have allegedly already appeared and are circulating. The motion says that this has caused SCEA considerable economic damage and loss, although no figure was stipulated.

• Also known as GeoHot, George Hotz, familiar to many from his iPhone and Playstation 3 hacks, has released source code for a piece of software which can allegedly be used to sign homebrew programs so that they will run on Sony’s Playstation 3. The code is reported to run under the current PS3 firmware version, version 3.55, modified using jailbreak software (direct download), also released by Hotz.

• So maybe that is the only, real reason why “Save as WWF” is so touchy: the people they are trying to dismiss as one handful of software-obsessed nerds only gave even more reasons why this whole campaign was a bad idea from the start. Let’s just admit it and go on (but using, of course, Free Software to reduce the environmental impact of computing!).

Clip of the Day“Jailbroken” PS3 3.55 with HomebrewCredit: TinyOgg Share in other sites/networks: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. Permalink  Send this to a friend

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