● 12.12.12

● Links 12/12/2012: Linux 3.7 is Out, OpenMandriva

Posted in News Roundup at 7:55 am by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

• For all CTOs and IT managers, bringing costs down and deploying easy-to-use technology is the biggest challenge. Shaadi.com has addressed this issue by relying on the open source model. Over a year, more than 50 per cent of the users in the company have migrated to Ubuntu from proprietary software.

• Desktop Linux for brand new computers has come a long way. Not too many years ago, consumers had fairly limited options in this space, but today we have more options than I could have ever imagined.

• One company offering desktop Linux on new systems is Dell. After seeing mixed success with its first line of Ubuntu PCs, Dell dumped Ubuntu almost entirely. But now Ubuntu is back with Dell’s new ultrabook offering.

• Sony again snubs Linux users with a PS3 by refusing access to the new SEN Web Store, with a generic error message giving no rhyme or reason

• Linux has grown its dominance on the list of the world’s fastest and most powerful supercomputers, now owning the top 10 positions and 93.8 percent of the OS share among the Top500 systems. That’s up from 91 percent two years ago. Based on the technology behind these top systems, there does not seem to be any slowing for Linux, certainly not in 2013.

• SevenBits has written a new Mac Linux USB Loader tool that allows you to take an ISO of a Linux distribution and make it boot using EFI on Mac.

Server

Kernel Space

• With the release of the Linux 3.7 kernel being imminent (it might even be out today), here’s an overview of the features and highlights of this 2012 holiday release of the Linux kernel.

• Linux 3.7 has more robust Intel and NVIDIA graphics drivers, support for ARM64, can handle NAT for IPv6 and has better Btrfs performance. These are just some of the enhancements in the latest version of the Linux kernel.

• Only months after the arrival of Linux 3.6, Linus Torvalds has released the next major Linux kernel update: 3.7. The time between releases wasn’t long, but this new version includes major improvements for ARM developers and network administrators. The 3.7 source code is now available for downloading.

• Programmers for ARM, the popular smartphone and tablet chip family, will be especially pleased with this release. ARM had been a problem child architecture for Linux. As Torvalds said in 2011, “Gaah. Guys, this whole ARM thing is a f**king pain in the ass.” Torvalds continued, “You need to stop stepping on each others toes. There is no way that your changes to those crazy clock-data files should constantly result in those annoying conflicts, just because different people in different ARM trees do some masturbatory renaming of some random device. Seriously.”

• The Linux Foundation has announced five new members today including embedded processor maker Freescale. Freescale say that the Linux Foundation hosts important embedded work such as the Yocto Project and collaboration with OpenEmbedded, so its membership and an increase in contributions to the ecosystem is a natural move. Consultancy Amarula Solutions has also joined, bringing its “extensive experience in mainlining patches, drivers and machine-layer code in the Linux kernel” to the group, and is looking to collaborate more widely.

• The Linux Foundation has announced that new members have joined the foundation, which include Telecom and Web Storage firms

• The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced that Amarula Solutions, Freescale, SIM Technology Group, Superb Internet and Symphony Teleca are joining the organization.

• Linux has emerged as the dominant operating system in a variety of markets over the last decade. It has seen major advancements this year in its role for embedded development and cloud computing. An accelerated pace of development to support these areas is expected for 2013. The Linux Foundation’s newest members are joining the organization now to maximize their investments in Linux for these areas as they prepare for the New Year.

• After last year discovering a major Linux kernel power regression that was widely debated until the Phoronix test automation software bisected the problem to get to the bottom of the situation, there’s more active power regressions today on the Linux desktop. As I’ve mentioned on Twitter and in other articles in weeks prior there’s a few regressions, but one of them for at least some notebooks is causing a very significant increase in power consumption. This situation that remains unresolved as of the Linux 3.7 kernel can cause the system to be going through about 20% more power.

Graphics Stack

• A second update to the Radeon DRM driver has been released that will be pulled into the Linux 3.8 kernel. This second Direct Render Manager update for the Radeon kernel driver provides new code from AMD that was kept internally for months but is now permitted for open-sourcing.

Applications

Proprietary

Instructionals/Technical

Wine

Games

• Hot on the heels of the surprisingly-well-received Big Picture mode, Valve has confirmed that it will release a “Steam Box” video game console sometime in 2013.

• The Video Game Awards happened on Friday night in California. During the event, Gabe Newell of Valve commented a bit more on their next-generation console / living room PC plans. To no surprise, Linux plays a big role.

• Earlier, there had been some rumors that Valve’s support for Linux has been due to the fact that they are going to ship their own Linux-based console. However, they were mostly rumors and we had no proof or evidence. Now, Gabe Newell has made some comments which show that Linux based console may be a reality soon. According to Kotaku.com, Valve’s next step is to get Steam Linux out of beta and to get Big Picture on that operating system, which would give Valve more flexibility when developing their own hardware.

• Gabe Newell confirms the company is working on hardware to compete with next generation consoles.

• A few weeks ago, we reported that after several years of slim pickings for Linux gamers, things really began to heat up on the Linux and open source gaming front. Valve, which has delivered very attractive game bundles through its Steam service on non-Linux platforms, has been driving lots of progress, and has delivered the beta version of Steam for Linux.

• Valve has also taken its Big Picture mode–a couch-friendly user interface for games and content consumption–out of beta testing. And now, there are reports that Big Picture mode and the Steam for Linux beta may be teamed up for a new type of gaming platform for living rooms everywhere.

• Amongst the mélange of Humble Indie Bundle titles are two side-scrollers with similar, yet unique takes on well-timed spacebar mashing: Canabalt and Bit.Trip Runner.

• Revenge of the Titans which is quite frankly an awesome game and my complete favourite from the Humble Bundles 2&3 has received an update which you can find either on your Humble Accounts if you purchased those bundles or via their own website of course which will enable you to use this new mode.

Desktop Environments

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

• That reminded me of the fact I forgot to blog about the new version of Slim Glow that will be in 4.10.

• The most noticeable change is that the system tray icons, share-like-connect icons, and others are now based on the awesome Font Awesome by Dave Gandy (http://fortawesome.github.com/Font-Awesome)

Distributions

• I haven’t tried out Arch Linux yet but I plan to do so next year. Mostly my experience is concentrated on Ubuntu, Fedora and their derivatives. Now with every passing release all these distributions are getting heavier and resource consuming. Puppy is a definite saving grace, no doubt. But, as an user I want to create my own lightweight all purpose operating system using Arch. Further, the rolling release of Arch is a definite advantage, once you set your system, you don’t need to re-install every alternate year.

• With Ubuntu 12.10 out, Ubuntu derivatives are releasing their final version as well. ZevenOS and OS4 are couple of such distros, both provide a cocktailed version of Xubuntu with some added benefits, of course. In this review I’ll provide insights of ZevenOS and in my next review will take on OS4. They offer more or less similar proposition and could have reviewed them together as well.

• It is kind of a peculiar feeling to use Linux distros who look and feel very similar. I am talking of ZevenOS 5.0 and OS4 OpenDesktop 13.1. Both got released in 5 days apart and have striking similarities, at least at a high level. Same Xubuntu fork with a BeOS theme, it is difficult to distinguish them from each other.

• Just in time for the expected final release of Slax 7.0 on Monday after all this time the web site has had a makeover as well to serve as a visual reminder that a new age for Slax has truly arrived. This is the first release using KDE 4, and possibly Blackbox as low resource alternative, and also the first one since a sponsor was secured. Slax 7.0 will be available to order on 16 GB USB flash drive for $25.-, and there are now localized versions in the download section. There’s a new page with all relevant documentation to get you up and running, and the developer has moved his personal blog over.

• The first and last Release Candidate of ROSA Desktop 2012 was announced last week. This means, of course, that the stable edition will be hitting a download mirror near you very soon, likely before Xmas. ROSA Desktop, an end-user edition, is published by ROSA Laboratory, a Linux solutions provider based in Moscow, Russia, which also publishes ROSA Desktop Enterprise.

• In real terms, the difference between ROSA Desktop and ROSA Desktop Enterprise is that the former will ship and always have the latest and greatest editions of the Linux kernel and software, bleeding edge, if you like, while the later will ship with Debian-style stable versions of applications and the Linux kernel.

New Releases

• After what the main developer calls “more than three years of silence”, the Slax project is back under active development and its developer has released version 7.0 of the small Linux distribution aimed at live usage. The project now sports a redesigned web site which will host a new module catalogue that will tie in with the Slax Software Center in future.

PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandrake/Mandriva Family

• Today Charles-H. Schulz blogged to share that “the statutes of the “OpenMandriva Association” have been sent to the French authorities and the incorporation process has thus started.” Schulz admits originally being skeptical that Mandriva would ever be truly open, that was until he spoke personally with Mandriva SA CEO Jean-Manuel Croset.

• Schulz continued by saying that the transition to the new community directed project and migrating all the infrastructure is “somewhere around 80%” complete and that none of it would have been possible without the commitment from Jean-Manuel Croset. He said, “It is not everyday you see an example of a community who gains its independence with the blessing and dedication of its former steward.”

Red Hat Family

• Jim Whitehurst, the President and CEO of Red Hat has had an interesting career to date. He was a consultant for a number of years, joined Delta Air Lines right around September 11, 2001, and played a big role in securing the future of that company as its Chief Operating Officer, and now is the President and CEO of Red Hat (NYSE: RHT), the world’s first billion dollar open source company. Whitehurst and I recently spoke as part of my Forum on World Class IT podcast series, and hearing him compare his time at Delta to his current role at Red Hat struck me as an interesting case example in how older generation businesses and newer technology firms differ in terms of culture, hierarchy, collaboration, and the like.

• Red Hat, world leaders in open source solutions to provide high-performing cloud, virtualisation, storage, Linux® and middleware technologies, have launched OpenShift Enterprise, their new product designed specifically for installation as an on-premise solution within private, public and hybrid cloud data centre.

Fedora

• Every new Fedora release, is a good time to test and see new features, normally I start testing on Alfa, but now after installing it on a test machine did not have to much time to play with it.

• Another thing that change on my test is was I installed instead of using preupgrade, the main reason, Fedora 18 has a new installer so I wanted to see how good it was.

• Being hotly discussed this weekend within the Fedora development camp is in regards to the future direction of the Linux distribution.

• Tomas Radej, a developer at Red Hat issuing a statement from the position of a Fedora contributor/community member rather than his employer, volleyed a long message on the Fedora devel list about “where are we going?”

Debian Family

Derivatives

Canonical/Ubuntu

• SOFTWARE DEVELOPER Canonical is set to anger its longstanding users once again by saying that Ubuntu 13.04 will offer users the opportunity to shop at Amazon from their desktop.

• Canonical has done a very good job of alienating large parts of its user base in the past two years through its decision to push the Unity window manager and then foisting an opt-out system on them in which local system search terms are sent to Amazon. Now the firm has said it will offer users the chance to buy products from Amazon directly from the control panel on the Unity desktop, which is called the Dash.

• This content would make it easier for advocates to get going, instead of navigating the wealth of unorganized content on the wiki and variety of promotional materials. The ADK provides a set of curated content that gets someone up and running quickly.

Flavours and Variants

• I remember those days when the name elementary used to refer themes, now we are looking at a review of a distribution developed by the same team. I must note that this is the review of the beta release of elementary OS Luna. Any minor annoyances or rough edges will probably be fixed before the final release. That said, I have no idea when the final release of Luna will be available.

• Clement Lefebvre proudly announced a minutes ago, December 10, the immediate availability for download of the OEM installation images of the recently released Linux Mint 14 operating system.

• Wow. It’s been a really long time since I’ve had the time to sit down and do a review like this. The reason for that is because this semester has been incredibly busy in pretty much every way, and today was finally the last day to turn in problem sets and other assignments. Now, I can finally do this review.

Devices/Embedded

• The Raspberry Pi can be the affordable route to teaching schoolchildren the lost idea that computer programming can be fun

Phones

• Forget Android and iOS—a team of enthusiasts plans to bring HP’s much-admired webOS back from the scrap heap.

Android

• Last month, I showed you an awesome audiobook player app for Android, but I didn’t share my frustration in getting the audio files on to my phone. When I plugged my phone in to the computer, I couldn’t get the SD card to mount, no matter what settings I changed. It was very frustrating and forced me to come up with a better way. Enter: FolderSync.

• The year 2012 has not been a good year for android manufacturers, with an exception of Samsung which hit success with high volume sales. While Samsung captued the largest smartphone market share, other manufactures failed to report profits.

• Surprisingly LG is on the path of turning things around. Everything changed for the South Korean company after the significant success of LG Optimus G and then the runaway hit of LG manufactured Google Flagship device Nexus 4, which still has a huge backorder.

• There is certainly no shortage of dedicated devs and modders working on hacking Android-powered devices to make them more useful and customizable.

Sub-notebooks/Tablets

• The Allwinner A10 single-core chip has been a relatively popular chip with Chinese device makers due to its low price and decent performance.

• That’s the processor that powers the original MK802 Android 4.0 Mini PC and a number of other mini PCs. It’s proven popular with tinkerers, because Android isn’t the only supported operating system. Users have been installing Ubuntu and other Linux-based software on Allwinner A10 devices for months, and the PengPod line of tablets are expected to ship soon with a desktop Linux operating system preloaded.

• That’s not to say LeapPad or similar tablets are any lesser in quality but Android tablets you get more flexibility and choice. Additionally, if you are doubtful if your toddler is big enough to handle a tablet or benefit from it completely you can get a cheap one and try it! Now let’s move on to the top nine Android based children tablet.

Free Software/Open Source

• Many heroes will remain unsung because there is no-one to tell their story. I first came across this story over eight years ago, and three years ago it became connected with my own. The hero in our story is an unlikely candidate for heroism: a public sector body in Germany, the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI).

• Do you remember when the Samba team won against Microsoft before the EU Commission, and they won the right to buy the documentation and use it like this? This result is part of that story, as the work was created using the official protocol documentation published by Microsoft. But times have changed, and Microsoft helped make this happen. That means it’s legal. So go ahead and use it. They even got a nice quotation from Microsoft for the press release.

• Samba is one of 11 open source projects that leading software integrity vendor Coverity has certified as “secure” and has reached Coverity “Integrity Rung 2″ certification. What I like the best about the Samba team is that it’s proven to be a no-sellout zone. “If you want to become a member of the team then the first thing you should do is join the samba-technical mailing list and start contributing to the development of Samba,” it says on the site.

• This is FOSS history, so it belongs right here in our archives. I lived that whole Samba-Microsoft saga, and it feels so right to see it bear such fruit. It’s what courts are for, and it’s why I am very grateful to the EU Commission, the Samba guys for not wimping out when everyone else did, and to the lawyers, especially Carlo Piana, for making it happen.

• Security boffins within the Defence Signals Directorate have released an open source forensics tool that improves the process of “carving out” target data stored within other file formats.

• The term “open source” was tossed around like any other tech buzzword some time ago. Many predicted the philosophy’s eventual demise or, at best, relegation to hobbyists. Few expected open source software to take hold in the enterprise, citing security concerns and lack of technical support beyond the community of developers itself. Now, however, open source has graduated from idealist’s dream to a ubiquitous presence in the toolkit of most software developers.

Events

• About a week ago, Foss.in, India’s largest free and open source conference completed another successful year in the running. If you weren’t there at the event, then read our day-by-day round up of the proceedings to catch-up.

Web Browsers

Chrome

• The problems were short-lived, but widespread. Over at Hacker News — a news discussion site that tends to attract Silicon Valley’s most knowledgeable software developers — a long thread quickly filled up with dozens of crash reports. “My Chrome has been crashing every ten minutes for the last half hour,” wrote one poster.

• This may be a first. Bad webpage coding can often cause a browser to crash, but yesterday’s crash looks like something different: widespread crashing kicked off by a web service designed to help drive your browser.

• Think of it as the flip side of cloud computing. Google’s pitch has always been that its servers are easier to use and less error-prone than buggy desktop software. But the Sync problem shows that when Google goes down, it can not only keep you from getting your e-mail — it can knock desktop software such as a browser offline too.

• Next-generation browsers may be built to connect with external displays and devices in brand new ways, and there are signs that the Google Chrome team may lead some of these efforts. According to a new set of posts, Chrome may take on new protocols and an API for communicating with “first screen devices,” and more. Here are the details.

SaaS

• As part, of UC Santa Barbara’s Distinguished Lecture Series, Eucalyptus Systems’ CEO, Marten Mickos shared his advice regarding what it takes to be a serially successful entrepreneur.

• In-Q-Tel is investing in big data firm Cloudera as part of that company’s newest venture capital round, All Things D reports.

• Cloudera raised $65 million in its latest round from IQT, Accel Partners, Greylock Partners, Ignition Partners and Meritech Capital Partners.

• The best thing about open source software systems has always been the fact that it is freely available and any programmer or company can use it to develop its own version of that software. For the longest time they have been the best solution for people willing to go outside the box in order to get the best results in their respective IT departments. Of course these systems have never been without profit and it came from two sources that are now getting to be absolute because of the emergence of cloud computing and the level of affordability most of its components come from.

Databases

• Listening to your phone calls without a judge’s warrant is illegal if you’re a U.S. citizen. But police don’t need a warrant — which requires showing “probable cause” of a crime — to get just the numbers you called and when you called them, as well as incoming calls, from phone carriers. Instead, police can get courts to sign off on a subpoena, which only requires that the data they’re after is relevant to an investigation — a lesser standard of evidence.

Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

• If you’ve ever used free and open source software for any length of time, you’re probably already aware that much of the work done to develop, test, and maintain that software is accomplished by what’s typically a global community of developers and volunteers.

CMS

• Acquia has set its sights on accelerating adoption of the open source Drupal content management system by large organisations. The company, which was founded by the CMS’s creator, Dries Buytaert, opened a Sydney office last month and plans on expanding its sales and business development operations in Australia.

• Australia is already home to elements of Acquia’s tri-continental 24/7 support setup, and the company’s Asia Pacific regional director, Chris Harrop, said he plans to boost the company’s local headcount to about 15 over the next 12 months, bringing on board field sales and business development staff in Sydney.

Healthcare

• With the national election over there’s an expectation for greater bipartisanship between Republicans and Democrats, but in terms of programs with potential for cooperation, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is one of the least likely. The ACA has been a significant point of contention between the parties, and despite the President’s reelection and therefore, the mandate to pursue ACA, it seems the conflict may continue, particularly around implementing a Health Insurance Exchange (HIX) website portal in each state. Luckily, open source may be the answer to overcoming some of the conflict.

BSD

• Originally the plan for FreeBSD 9.1 was to release it in mid-September, but the first release candidate was one month late along with the RC2 and RC3 releases. The plan was then updated to release FreeBSD 9.1 at the end of October, but that too passed. The latest schedule set the RELEASE announcement as going out on 12 November, but that clearly didn’t work either.

• It’s been more than one month since the last test release (FreeBSD 9.1-RC3) and there’s still no sign of an imminent release. Asked on the mailing list this weekend was Will we get a RELEASE-9.1 for Christmas? There’s FreeBSD stakeholders delaying new server rollouts until the FreeBSD 9.1 availability, but there’s been no clear communication from FreeBSD developers when the release will happen.

• Veteran BSD hacker Marshall Kirk McKusick has played down fears that the FreeBSD project will fall short of its target of raising $US500,000 through donations for this year.

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

• Free software leader Richard Stallman claims Ubuntu amounts to spyware with Amazon search integrated into the “dash” of its Unity interface. He is calling for developers to shun the open-source operating system.

• Canonical has yet to make an official statement…

• On the issue that Stallamn raised Jono Bacon still maintains a view “that referring to the Ubuntu dash as malicious software that collects information about users without their knowledge (spyware) and as a result that Ubuntu should be shunned for “spying”, somewhat over-sensationalizes the issue”.

• It is good in part of Jono Bacon to come up with a apology but the post does not deal with concers that Stallman initially raised regarding user privacy. This post could mean that those question could remain unanswered.

• Ubuntu Community Manager Jono Bacon has apologised to Richard Stallman for calling Stallman’s position on Ubuntu “childish”. Last week, Richard Stallman wrote an article describing Ubuntu 12.10′s Amazon Shopping Lens as spyware. In “Ubuntu Spyware: What to do”, Stallman said that the sending of search terms being entered into the desktop by users on to Canonical’s servers, where they are then searched for on Amazon, is simple surveillance and without the users’ consent. Even though the Amazon searching can be turned off, “the existence of that switch does not make the surveillance feature ok” because its default state is on, he says. Stallman called on the free software community to “remove Ubuntu from the distros you recommend” and said that “it behooves us to give Canonical whatever rebuff is needed to make it stop this”.

• It isn’t freedom to have to choose for Richard Stallman’s world view. It isn’t ‘freedom’ to be called immoral just because you choose another ethic. It isn’t freedom when a single person or group with a single view on morality tries to forbid you something based on just their point of view.

• For example, Stallman has repeatedly said about Trusted Computing (which he in a childish way apparently calls Treacherous Computing) that it ‘should be illegal’ (that’s a quote from official FSF and GNU pages). I also recall Stallman trying to forbid blog posts about proprietary software (it was about VMWare) on planet-gnome (original thread here).

Project Releases

• Popular video editing and 3d animation software Blender has recieved a new update.

Public Services/Government

• Web developers in the White House also collaborate with the open source community on Github, offering White House mobile apps. The White House website offers a page for developers interested in using their open source tools at whitehouse.gov/developers. Developers can also track the White House’s open source activity through the White House’s Github profile.

• In an overwhelming majority vote, the city council in Bern, Switzerland has moved to implement all future infrastructure with open source technologies. The “Party Motion”, as it is called in Switzerland, was submitted over a year ago, and has finally been realized. Plans to move forward with open source design, strategy and implementation should begin immediately.

Openness/Sharing

Open Hardware

• The new project aims to develop a new GSM/GPS-enabled tracking system for a wide variety of uses. On the hardware side, the project aims to develop an affordable, water-proof, robust, high-quality and state-of-the-art device, capable of operating in temperatures as low as -40C.

• Tinkerers take note, because Arduino has launched its new Esplora controller, which just so happens to be customizable and open source. The Esplora is derived from the Arduino Leonardo, but unlike its predecessors, it comes equipped with a number of sensors and buttons out of the box. That means it should be at least relatively easy to just jump in once your Esplora arrives.

• With a 3D printer that costs less than $3,000, you can start your own mini manufacturing operation — and use open source software to create surprisingly complex designs

Programming

• Dropbox has announced that Python creator Guido van Rossum will be joining the company. According to a tweet by van Rossum, he has already quit his job at Google and will be starting at the company behind the popular synchronisation software in January. Van Rossum says he is “leaving Google as the best of friends” in a later tweet, where he shared a link to his redecorated office.

Leftovers

Security

• A password-cracking expert has unveiled a computer cluster that can cycle through as many as 350 billion guesses per second. It’s an almost unprecedented speed that can try every possible Windows passcode in the typical enterprise in less than six hours.

Defence/Police/Aggression

• WIKILEAKS publisher Julian Assange has confirmed his intention to run as a Senate candidate in the 2013 federal election and will announce the formation of a WikiLeaks political party early next year.

• NSA also has an interest in being able to compromise the software running on servers and end-user devices at the “edges”…

• Is “targeted killing” just a polite, antiseptic phrase for assassination?

• If any news outlet should feel a responsibility to cover the ongoing hearing in the case of Bradley Manning, accused of leaking countless US government and military documents (and an infamous video) via WikiLeaks to the worldwide media—it would seem to be The New York Times.

• The Obama administration has decided to launch a covert operation to send heavy weapons to Syrian rebels, Christina Lamb of The Sunday Times of London reports. Diplomatic sources told the Sunday Times that the U.S. “bought weapons from the stockpiles of Libya’s former dictator Muammar Gaddafi.”

• New details have emerged that shed light on the chaos that embroiled the Benghazi mission on 9/11/2012 that led to the murder of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans at the hands of the very anti-Qaddafi rebels that Stevens formally liaised with for the CIA.

• It wasn’t a secret that Ambassador Christopher Stevens played a key role in Libya’s “Arab Spring.” During the course of the revolution that ultimately toppled Muammar Qaddafi, Stevens’ built a relationship with the Libyan rebels and it’s this experience that made him the frontrunner for the Libyan ambassadorship. Stevens’ history of working with Libyan radicals provided the perfect opportunity for the Obama administration to covertly move newly purchased weapons from Libya’s freedom fighters to Syrian insurgents via ships through Turkey.

• This is a long overdue documentary, in half an hour, the BBC’s ‘Panorama’ team ventures into the hinterland of American drone strikes, and puts a human face to this so-called war.

• However Homeland ends its amazing second season next week, I’m already anticipating its real-life cliffhanger: How does President Obama react to Brody assassinating the vice president for killing scores of children by drone?

• Is “killed by a drone strike” the new “alive and well”? If you pay close enough attention, it makes you wonder what’s really going on.

• Israel’s use of military force is scrutinized, while the U.S.’s use of armed drones in Pakistan barely registers. But these drones and their civilian casualties are strengthening Pakistani and Taliban extreme Islamism and anti-Americanism – this international footprint is how the U.S. is being judged.

• We’ve covered how President Obama needs the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to justify detention powers he has used for the past four years, but there’s another reason he needs it: drones. At the heart of both issues is the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), which gives the president authority “to use all necessary and appropriate force against those … [who] aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001 or harbored such organizations or persons.”

• A company commander in Pfc. Bradley Manning’s Army chain of command, who made multiple visits to see Manning while he was imprisoned at Quantico Marine Brig, took the stand as a government witness today to provide testimony on Manning’s treatment. He did not initially appear to have any notion that Manning was mistreated while he was held there, but in the final moments of his testimony he indicated he did not agree with some of the decisions. He also had not been informed of the fact that mental health officers were recommending Manning be taken off prevention of injury (POI) status. And when he finished testifying, he stood up and walked over to shake Manning’s hand.

• On September 8, Latif was found “motionless and unresponsive” by guards in a cell in the very same Camp 5 cellblock he had cited in his letter. Two months later, the military produced a report that said he committed suicide.

• The mystery surrounding the death of the eldest son of a Yemeni merchant who, by all accounts, did not belong at the offshore prison for suspected terrorists, is underscored by the almost prophetic nature of this singular letter.

Environment/Energy/Wildlife

• The construction of offshore wind parks in the North Sea has hit a snag with a vital link to the onshore power grid hopelessly behind schedule. The delays have some reconsidering the ability of wind power to propel Germany into the post-nuclear era.

PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

• As concerned workers come together across Michigan in protest, partisan politicians are poised to make one of the strongholds for America’s blue-collar worker rights into a so-called “Right to Work” (RTW) state — in accordance with the ALEC blueprint to change to state laws at the behest of some of the biggest corporations in the world. Yet, 42 corporations, including General Motors, have distanced themselves from ALEC this year after ALEC’s role in controversial and divisive legislation was exposed.

Privacy

• The Daily had an interesting report this week — picked up by Wired — about “government officials quietly installing sophisticated audio surveillance systems on public buses across the country to eavesdrop on passengers.” I know what you’re thinking: “Woo! More epic bus fight scenes that come with audio.”

• “The Internet,” Assange declares in the introduction, “has led to revolutions across the world but a crackdown is now in full swing. As whole societies move online, mass surveillance programs are being deployed globally. Our civilization has reached a crossroads.” In line with the Obama administration’s campaign against WikiLeaks, most of the mainstream media has largely ignored the book. Others, such as the American television network CNN, have brushed aside the book’s themes while claiming that Assange’s principled defence of press freedom is hypocritical. CNN journalist Erin Burnett, who hosts the network’s prime time nightly news program—“Erin Burnett: OutFront”—attempted this approach in late November.

• In-Q-Tel, the technology investment arm of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), will invest in Tyfone, a small developer of mobile banking, identity management and near-field communication systems.

• The size of the investment was not disclosed.

Civil Rights

• An inspiration for the hero of Zero Dark Thirty, a CIA agent who was celebrated with a prestigious award for helping to track down Osama Bin Laden, seemingly has had a less glorious career in the mission’s aftermath, according to the Washington Post. A former CIA official says she bashed her fellow honorees over email, essentially telling them, “You guys tried to obstruct me. You fought me. Only I deserve the award.” How does the CIA give awards to secret agents?

• A former covert CIA officer who claims the agency disseminated false information about him, thwarting an employment opportunity with a defense contractor, could get a chance to further probe his allegations.

• A federal trial judge in Washington said at a recent hearing in the case that he was inclined to allow the officer—identified in court papers only as “Peter B.”—the opportunity to conduct limited discovery in his lawsuit.

• Twitter says it “provides a voice for liberty around the globe” — an image the microblogging service promoted during the populist uprisings of the Arab Spring. But it remains to be seen how it reacts to activist controversies right here at home.

Internet/Net Neutrality

• Controversial proposals handed to the ITU on Friday have now been withdrawn

• The draft Communications Data Bill has today been roundly criticised by the committee of MPs and Peers, who make clear that the draft Bill is not fit for purpose and unacceptable in its current form. The report makes clear tinkering and minor changes are nowhere near enough – this draft bill is unacceptable to Parliament and if there is to be legislation, it is back to the drawing board for the Home Office.

• A non-partisan, well-informed cross-Parliamentary committee has found the draft Communications Data Bill is so badly – almost abusively – drafted that it must not be allowed to proceed without substantial revision. Here’s my summary.

• The EU is bringing a positive momentum. Some examples are debates on roaming, transparency, accessibility, and energy efficiency. These are issues of interest and importance not just to European citizens, but to all those who would be affected by a new ITR treaty. And what is new at this conference is that Europe speaks with one voice, thanks to a joint decision Member States took before going to Dubai, based on a European Commission proposal.

• On other issues the EU has suggested compromises that have been rejected.

• Today, the EU Parliament adopted two important resolutions underlining its commitment to protecting and promoting rights and freedoms on the Internet, especially on the issue of Net neutrality. La Quadrature du Net welcomes this vote by EU lawmakers, and urges the EU Commission as well as Member States to follow suit by enacting legislation to protect freedoms online and foster democracy as well as innovation.

Intellectual Monopolies

Copyrights

• Back in the summer, there was a widely covered story about Judge Alsup’s decision regarding copyrightablity in the Oracle v. Google case. Oracle has appealed the verdict so presumably this will enter the news again at some point. I’d been meaning to write a blog post about it since it happened, and also Karen Sandler and I had been planning an audcast to talk about it.

• To a lot of people all over the world, Creative Commons is more than a license. The organization and their mission is a shining copyleft-light for work rendered by artists, designers, writers, and the list goes on. Here at Opensource.com all of our original content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY-SA) which means that you are welcome to share (copy, distribute, and transmit the work), to remix (to adapt the work), or to make commercial use of the work. And many of our contributors choose to attribute thier work under the same license. Why?

• Acting on her promise, Jammie Thomas-Rasset has finally fought her music uploading case all the way to the Supreme Court. Her lawyers announced today that they have filed an official petition asking the Supreme Court to review her long-running case, which has moved up through the courts over the past five years.

• In 2007, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) accused Thomas-Rasset of copyright infringement for sharing 1,700 copyrighted songs — the equivalent of 150 CDs. But the RIAA whittled down the number to 24. A jury heard the evidence against her and rendered a $222,000 verdict.

• Currently fighting deportation efforts in Guatemala, the antivirus-software pioneer sells life-story rights to a Montreal-based TV production company.

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