● 04.07.15

● Links 7/4/2015: Dell XPS 13 With Ubuntu, digiKam Software Collection 4.9.0

Posted in News Roundup at 6:54 pm by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

• In a post to the Linux-aus mailing list Saturday The Linux Australia Council informed members and conference attendees that due to a server breach personal information could be compromised. The March 22 hack was discovered two days later when steps were taken to “minimize the immediate damage.” Elsewhere, CoreOS has joined the race to Kubernetes and folks are still buzzing about the Wired.com quote saying Open Source Windows is a possibility.

• The president of open-source software user group Linux Australia has called on registered attendees of the organisation’s conferences for the past three years to change their passwords after it was discovered that the server hosting its conference management system had been breached.

Desktop

• Linux PC retailer ZaReason has released one of its first computers with an Intel Broadwell processor. The ZaReason Zini 1550 is a tiny desktop computer which sells for $549 and up.

• It’s based on Intel’s NUC mini PC platform, but unlike some NUC systems, the Zini 1550 comes with memory, storage, and an operating system which means you should be able to start using the computer almost as soon as you plug it in.

• As you’re getting used to Linux (potentially as your new main operating system), you’ll eventually try to find a way to efficiently manage your music. iTunes comes to mind because it’s been the most popular way to manage music over the years, but you’ll quickly find out that iTunes isn’t available natively on Linux. Plus, better ways exist to manage your music now that it’s 2015.

• However, that doesn’t automatically mean that you won’t be able to manage your music the way you want to. There’s plenty of other ways to keep tabs on your music library. Here’s six great ways to get it done.

• If I plan on being productive I can’t listen to ‘regular’ music. It distracts me. I start singing along or get reminded of a different track, so end up poking around my library and… Well, that’s that.

• One Czech technical high school partnered with the Linux Professional Institute on courses and certification. Red Hat has been hiring up a storm in the Czech Republic.

• Google recently grabbed a lot of headlines for its new Chromebit, a Chrome OS computer in a HDMI stick. That’s fine, but Google and Asus are far from the first to put a computer on an HDMI stick. That honor goes to FXI Technologies Cotton Candy, which released it first model in 2012.

Kernel Space

• Linus Torvalds 10 years ago today released Git after it was clear BitKeeper was no longer an option for the Linux community. He assessed other existing revision control systems and decided none would do. Ultimately, he decided he would just write a new one, so he went away for a weekend and came back with another hole in one. Most people know Linus created Linux, but many don’t know he is the mastermind behind what has become the most popular revision control system in software development today. If you ask him which is his crowning achievement, he’ll say “do I have to have just one?”

• Git will be celebrating it’s 10 anniversary this month. It’s yet another contribution of Linus Torvalds to the world in addition to Sub Surface and Linux. Jennifer Cloer of The Linux Foundation interviewed the father of Linux and presented us with a very comprehensive story behind Git.

• Linux Kernel 3.18.11 has been recently released with number of bug fixes and improvements for ARM, ARM64, s390, PowerPC, x86, MicroBlaze, and SPARC architectures and Updates to the NILFS2 and FUSE file systems. All Linux Kernels 3.18 users are urged to upgrade to Kernel 3.18.11 as soon as possible. Here is how you can manually upgrade to Kernel 3.18.11.

• Linus Torvalds had the pleasure of announcing today, April 6, the immediate availability for download and testing of the seventh and last RC (Release Candidate) version of upcoming Linux 4.0 kernel, as well as the fact that the final version of Linux kernel 4.0 will be unveiled in two weeks from today, around April 19, 2015.

• It’s coming a day later than anticipated, but the seventh weekly update for the Linux 4.0 kernel is now available.

• Linus Torvald’s mailing list announcement mentioned the changes over the past week were small albeit the release delay was due to the holiday. Linus confirmed he’s planning to ship Linux 4.0 next weekend, ~12 April. However, that might be delayed as he’s planning to travel next week and that could complicate his opening of the merge window for Linux 4.1. So if he decides against the release next weekend due to the travel complications, Linux 4.0 might not be officially released for two weeks.

• Since announcing our Intro to Linux course for free on the edX platform a year ago, we’ve been working on doing a variety of things to make Linux learning and access to tour training and certification programs more accessible to all.

• Recently there was some discussion about ways to ease the tired backs of kernel maintainers. Apparently the merge windows are times of great labor, and some folks wanted to alert contributors to some preferable code submission habits.

• There were a variety of ideas, and Kevin Cernekee summarized them in patch form, but one key idea was that none of this advice really could be treated as etched into stone. Linus Torvalds and Theodore Ts’o, in particular, pointed out that maintainers all have their own ways of doing things, and that no general rules could be relied on universally to produce repeatable results.

Graphics Stack

• Nvidia had the pleasure of publishing today, April 6, an update to its Long Lived Branch of the Nvidia video driver for GNU/Linux, BSD, and Solaris operating systems, version 346.59.

Applications

• I am pleased to announce that after months of work a new release of GNUstep’s IRC client, TalkSoup, is ready!

• Git-cinnabar is a git remote helper to interact with mercurial repositories. It allows to clone, pull and push from/to mercurial remote repositories, using git.

• It’s been an interesting two weeks, talking about and looking into why text-to-speech (TTS) is such a mess in Linux. I’ve spoken with seventeen of you; seventeen who know a bit about software programming. “A bit” is a purposeful understatement. Some of you have forgotten more about software programming than I will ever know. That being the case, I have learned a bit about why TTS in Linux is next to worthless. For those who are just joining into the conversation, let me catch you up quickly.

Proprietary

• IT administrators who use Linux servers now have access to a backup and disaster recovery from a trusted industry solution with today’s release of StorageCraft® ShadowProtect® SPX. This addition to the StorageCraft Recovery-Ability™ solution offers Linux users reliable backup, protect, migrate and – most importantly – recovery for virtual and physical Linux servers.

Instructionals/Technical

• This week marks the 10-year anniversary of the day Linux creator Linus Torvalds released the first version of the Git distributed revision control system. Thousands of open source projects now rely on this popular software development tool, which fuels the growth of the collaborative development model that now dominates tech innovation.

• `Alternative Toolbar` is a Rhythmbox plugin which replaces the default Rhythmbox toolbar with a client-side decorations (header bars) toolbar or a compact toolbar that can be hidden.

Games

• The free modification for Half-Life 2 ‘Transmissions: Element 120′ is in need of people who can help port it to Linux.

• Outlast, a first-person horror game developed and published by Red Barrels on Steam, has been released on the Linux platform.

• …the game has been patched with Mac and Linux support…

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

• In a blog post on April 6, 2015, Boudewijn Rempt laid down the plans for the next major release of the best open-source digital painting software, Krita 3.0, which will be ported to Qt5.

• The digiKam Team is proud to announce the release of digiKam Software Collection 4.9.0. This release includes a new sets of bugs fixes from Maik Qualmann who maintain KDE4 version while KF5 port is under progress.

Distributions

Reviews

• Parsix GNU/Linux 7 is a feature-rich rendition of the GNOME desktop that you must take for a spin regardless of how you feel about the GNOME desktop.

New Releases

• David Cortarello announced on April 6 that the second maintenance release of Kwort Linux 4.0, an open source distribution based on the CRUX operating system and designed to be robust, extendable, and clean, is now available for download.

• As the title says Kwort 4.2 is out there in the wild

Screenshots

Gentoo Family

• At many of our readers’ request, today we start a new series of screenshot tours that will track the changes implemented in the Sabayon Linux distribution, a rolling-release operating system based on Gentoo.

Arch Family

• Other than the hardware-specific issues, I’ve been amazed by how well Arch Linux works, given that it doesn’t have release cycles, or a big team with a lot of money supporting and marketing it. I’ve heard only 30 developers maintain the core Arch packages, with most of them having a full-time job doing something else! At the same time, it shouldn’t be a total surprise things work so well because free software doesn’t just fall off a turnip truck:

Ballnux/SUSE

• We reported a few days ago that the April update of openSUSE Tumbleweed will switch to the KDE Plasma 5 desktop environment by default. Today, we have some more news regarding the transition to KDE Plasma 5 in openSUSE.

• openSUSE Tumbleweed/Factory is a rolling-release version of openSUSE, where all the new technologies get implemented before they land in the main openSUSE distribution.

Red Hat Family

• Thousands of Expected Attendees to Talk about the Future of Enterprise Technology, Including Cloud Computing, Internet of Things, Linux Containers, Big Data, Mobile, and Beyond

• His 19 followers would lead one to believe that Salo’s presence in the community is small. And yet, in the past year alone, he made 845 contributions – over two or so per day. As of writing, his contribution streak has lasted only two days, but his longest one – between the lead up to new year’s and the early weeks of January – lasted almost two weeks.

• The list is compiled based on objective criteria set by CRN, taking into account each vendor’s investments in program offerings, partner profitability, partner training, education and support, marketing programs and resources, sales support, and communication. Vendors are assessed using the information that they provide in their completed applications. 5-star recipients were selected based on the information provided in their award applications, and how it matched up to the aforementioned criteria.

• NethServer is a free, Open Source, CentOS based all-in-one Linux server distribution, specially designed for small offices and medium-size enterprises. NethServer offers number of built-in modules that can be used to turn any systems into a mail, Web, Proxy, DNS, FTP, Cloud, IDS, Samba, or VPN servers instantly within few minutes. Just forget the step by step and comprehensive installation steps, because we can install the modules of our choice with a ‘single click’. It comes with a built-in powerful and modern web interface that simplifies the common administrative tasks. Since it is based on popular CentOS distribution, NethServer is very powerful, solid, secured distribution. We can regularly get security fixes, updates from the official CentOS repositories as well.

Fedora

Debian Family

• For the Debian GNU/Linux community, there has long been an idiom that has often been repeated about release dates. That idiom is that, ‘it’s done when it’s done.”. At long last it would appear that the next major milestone release of Debian, version 8.0 also known as ‘Jessie’ is *almost* done.

• I recently spent some time updating my systemd knowledge and decided to put together some slides that I’ll use for a lecture. I’m interested in feedback about things that are missing, unclear, etc. Available on slideshare, as PDF, and as LaTeX source.

Derivatives

• The Elive Team is proud to announce the release of the beta version 2.6.2

Canonical/Ubuntu

• A Softpedia user informs us today that there is an old bug in the current Ubuntu releases that affects the way Wine apps are working on the distribution. The issue being related to the Compiz compositing manager.

• There are a ton of community projects for Ubuntu Touch, and some of them are really interesting, like the upcoming Unity Tweak app that is being built right now by a developer.

• There are plenty new features that 15.04 family has to offer. The question is which is the most expected? Let’s vote for that!

• AliExpress has a Chinese Cube table for sale that runs Ubuntu Linux. The 11.6-inch tablet is dubbed Cube I7 and promises to offer either the Ubuntu Kylin or Windows 8 operating systems, according to the screenshots and information presented on the website.

• UbuTab is a tablet supposedly built to take advantage of both Android and Ubuntu Touch operating systems and promises some great hardware components. The tablets should start shipping mid-April, but there is a problem. Ubuntu developers have no knowledge about the possible implementation of Ubuntu Touch on the tablet.

• The new machines start off at $949 (around £639, or AU$1,240) and come with Ubuntu 14.04 installed in addition to an Intel Core i5 Broadwell processor and 8GB of RAM that offers a boost compared to the XPS 13 range.

• Ubuntu developers usually plan beyond what they are working on at any particular moment, and it looks like they are finally taking an important decision regarding the presence of Python 2 libraries and dependencies, which might be solved for the Ubuntu 15.10 launch.

• Details about a number of Firefox vulnerabilities and a new Firefox in its Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and Ubuntu 12.04 LTS operating systems have been revealed by Canonical, and the company has pushed a version of the software into the repositories.

• The first ‘production’ smartphone running the Ubuntu operating system is finally here. Designed and marketed by the Spanish company BQ (not to be confused with the Chinese company BQ Mobile) and made in China, the first Ubuntu Phone is based on the 4.5-inch BQ Aquaris E4.5, which normally ships with Android 4.4. Included with the BQ Aquaris E4.5 Ubuntu Edition are two copies of the quick-start guide (in four languages each, one of the eight being English), a charger (with a built-in two-pin continental mains plug) and a 1-metre USB-to-Micro-USB cable. A comprehensive User Manual is available for download from the BQ website. The list price for the Aquaris E4.5 Ubuntu Edition, which is only available in the EU, is €169.90 (~£125).

Flavours and Variants

• elementary OS is definitely one of the stars of the Linux ecosystem right now and with good reason. It’s one of the most beautiful operating systems out there, and you would think that that’s enough, but there are as many reasons to hate it as there are to love it.

• MintBox Mini is a mini-PC designed and built by CompuLab. The new system was just made available and the first batch is already sold out.

Devices/Embedded

• Inforce unveiled a tiny “6501 Micro SoM” that runs Android on a quad-core 2.7GHz Snapdragon 805 SoC, and offers A/V, camera, USB, serial, and wireless I/O.

• Inforce Computing’s 6501 Micro SoM taps the same Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 SoC used by its Inforce 6540 Pico-ITX SBC, but in computer-on-module form. The 50 x 28mm module, which is supported with an Inforce 6501 Development Kit, is claimed to be the “world’s smallest Snapdragon module for embedded applications.” Last September, Intrinsyc announced an 82 x 35mm, SODIMM-style COM based on the Snapdragon 805 called the Open-Q 8084 SOM, which is similarly supported with a carrier board.

• Seco has released a commercial SBC spun from the original i.MX6-based open spec Udoo hacker SBC, adding eMMC flash and subtracting Arduino compatibility.

• Allwinner unveiled a Cortex-A7 based SoC for smart connected cameras that integrates its HawkView image signal processor, and supports Linux and “Camdroid.”

• Allwinner jumped on the ARM Cortex-A7 spec early, using it for its popular, low-priced system-on-chips like the Allwinner A10, dual-core A20, and quad-core A31. Like the A10, Allwinner’s new “V3″ SoC has a single Cortex-A7 core, in this case clocked to 1.2GHz. However, Like a number of TI’s Linux-focused, DSP-based DaVinci SoCs, the V3 is designed for camera applications. It follows Allwinner V-Series SoCs including the quad-core, Cortex-A7 V10 and Cortex-A8-based V15.

• For anyone who doesn’t have Microsoft on their agenda, there is an option to save $40 and get a preinstalled Linux flavour instead. The Intel Compute Stick is up pre-order at $150 for the Windows-powered version, or $110 if you opt for Ubuntu.

Phones

Android

• Verizon has just announced that it is rolling out an Android 5.0 Lollipop update to users of Samsung Galaxy Note 4. The latest software version, N910VVRU1BOAF, is said to have everything that Lollipop can offer.

• Android TV devices have left a lot to be desired so far. Back at CES Razer showed off a device that should finally do justice to Android TV. The Razer Forge TV is a beast of a set-top box, and you can pre-order it right now from Amazon. Razer is typically known for their gaming products, which is precisely what makes this device so great.

• The much anticipated LG G2 Android 5.0 Lollipop update is finally here and slowly arriving for more and more owners, but the Android 5.0 Lollipop update is also causing problems for many. The update initially started outside of the US for unlocked devices, and then earlier this month the LG G2 in the US finally received Android 5.0 Lollipop, starting with Verizon.

• Google’s Nexus 5 Android 5.1 Lollipop update has been rolling out slowly for several and we’re finally starting to see Google make a big push with the roll out. With that in mind, we want to take a look at how the Nexus 5 Android 5.1 update has been performing on Google’s aging former flagship. This is our Nexus 5 Android 5.1 review.

• Before you ask, yes, this article is basically just another excuse for me to use Android Police’s favorite device abbreviation, LGGP83GPE. (That’s the short-lived Google Play Edition of the LG G Pad 8.3, from way back in 2013.) According to at least one Twitter user and, hey, my own tablet, the LGGP83GPE is getting its Android 5.1 update right about now. If you’re running stock software, head to the usual spot (Settings>About tablet>System updates) to check for yours.

• The speculation about Google merging Chrome OS and Android has been a constant over the last few years. Why does Google have two separate systems when everyone else is merging? Why doesn’t Chrome just get folded into Android? Google has to kill one of them off. It’s odd that the tech world insists on Highlander rules – there can be only one. But the truth is that Google can bring them closer and closer together, and create a seamless experience for us, and it doesn’t need one to assimilate the other in order to do that.

• It’s been a long wait, but we promise you — it’s worth it. HTC One M8 owners on AT&T had to sit back and watch as the other “Big 4″ carriers in the US pushed out Android Lollipop to the device.

• Owners of the HTC One M8 phone on AT&T should be on the lookout for a shot of Android Lollipop as of Tuesday.

• Good news if you have an LG G Pad 8.3 Google Play Edition tablet: The Android 5.1 software update is in the air, waiting to be installed on your device. Android Police notes that the new version became available for the slate on Monday. Google updated and posted the software for many of its own Nexus devices a few weeks ago. If you have one of those, you can download and install the Android 5.1 factory image directly from Google here.

• Last week, Google published its comeback. The company’s “Android Security 2014 Year in Review” report shows that less than 1% of Android devices have any malware. Google scans Active Android devices with a product called “Verify Apps,” which seeks out viruses, ransomware, or other “potentially harmful applications” (PHAs).

• Google has launched a tool that lets Android apps run on any machine that can run its Chrome browser.

• The software, called Arc Welder, acts as a wrapper around Android apps so they can run on Windows, OSX and Linux machines.

• Phone maker HTC has been apparently working on a new system codenamed “Cello” that links up with everything from navigation to night vision in a bid to provide a much more robust alternative to Google’s Android Auto and Apple CarPlay.

• In October when Google announced the brand new Android 5.0 Lollipop update many manufacturers promised quick updates, and that included Motorola. Google’s been busy pushing updates to Nexus users, as well as a new Android 5.0.2 and Android 5.1 update to fix some bugs, and today we’ve learned the Moto G is getting Android 5.1 Lollipop for some.

• If you own an Android phone, that also means you have a Google account. Google would like you to know that this account isn’t just there for show — it’s there to unlock a bunch of cool services on your smartphone. To help out Android newbies, Google has created a whole page dedicated to “78 things you didn’t know you could do with Google” to provide users with the basics they need to help them get the most out of Google’s services.

• Google’s own director of engineering for Android Wear gives us a glimpse at what devices he carries, how he sets up his home screens, and what apps he can’t live without.

Free Software/Open Source

• “To have GitHub cohost their first conference outside of the US in Wellington is a strong endorsement of our tech capability.”

• As a digital immigrant who has, without sometimes knowing why, gone down he android path for my devices, I’m inherently drawn to the open source philosophy.

• In a sense, at a time when public participation in democracy is lessening, it is events such as this that continue to hold the flame for non-secrecy and more sharing in society.

• Open source’s influence extends far beyond sharing code, but this aspect sometimes goes unappreciated. For example, I previously wrote about how the special way of developing and collaborating associated with open source has come to also reflect many DevOps best practices, from transparency to iterative fast releases. I’d argue that it is many of these same default behaviors that are helping to make the Internet of Things a hot topic today.

Events

• Fedora Jam is coming to Linux Fest North West in Bellingham, Washington, April 24th to 26th. If you are a friend of Fedora, sign up on the wiki and participate in our booth. Or if you are a musician, come by to try out Fedora Jam, we will have a guitar, keyboard and other instruments to try out. We will have Fedora shirts at the Friday game night, show your Fedora pride during the fest.

Web Browsers

Mozilla

• Mozilla is working on a new feature called Tracking Protection that is helping users identify and block websites that collect personal data despite the fact that the browser has the “Do Not Track” policy enabled.

SaaS/Big Data

• As part of the OpenStack Live conference next week in Santa Clara, California, she’ll be delivering a three hour tutorial on OpenStack networking architecture and concepts, along with her colleague Faan DeSwardt.

• At one point, the Big Data trend–sorting and sifting large data sets with new tools in pursuit of surfacing meaningful angles on stored information–remained an enterprise-only story, but now businesses of all sizes are evaluating tools that can help them glean meaningful insights from the data they store. As we’ve noted, the open source Hadoop project has been one of the big drivers of this trend, and has given rise to commercial companies that offer custom Hadoop distributions, support, training and more. Cloudera, Hortonworks and MapR are leading the pack among these Hadoop-focused companies.

Funding

• Every time I hear of another great open source project shutting its doors, I hold my breath in hopes it will be forked. Sadly though, this isn’t a great plan for all projects. Sometimes these projects are rich in users but poor in developers. In this article, I’ll explore this issue and what can be done to keep open source projects funded.

• Google has a vested interest in CoreOS bringing Kubernetes to the enterprise, with Google Ventures investing $12 million in Tectonic.

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

• This post from 2011 is no longer applicable; nongnu submissions have been accepted again for some years, as detailed in later news items.

Public Services/Government

• The Basque Parliament is planning to overhaul its workflow, wishing to increase its use of digital identity and electronic signature solutions. The Basque Parliament is using Sinadura, an open source eID tool developed by Zylk, a Bilbao-based open source IT service provider. The parliament now wants to combine this with more applications, the company says.

Openness/Sharing

• The Qatar Digital Library is soon set to reach some 500.000 images, and it’s increasing by the minute. You don’t want to miss this great (and free) source of information.

Open Data

• The German federal government has launched an online platform where anyone can submit ideas for open data. After four weeks (later this month), the online phase will be closed and all the ideas will be collected.

• The Vienna Municipal Department of Land Surveying, MA 41, has made all of its geodata available for free. This data includes multi-purpose (surface) maps, orthophotos, terrain models, structure models, and surface models, all part of the Geodata Infrastructure.

Open Access/Content

• Let’s start with an explanation of the digital humanities. The digital humanities is where traditional humanities scholarship—or, the academic study of arts, language, history, and the like—meets the digital age. By using technology in new and innovative ways, digital humanities scholars can create research projects that explore topics in ways that were not possible (or were extremely laborious undertakings) before computers.

• A group of Rutgers-Camden students are celebrating what they see as a huge step toward the university offering an alternative to traditional — and traditionally expensive — textbooks.

Leftovers

• I see that in “journalists” questioning Blair, nobody asked the obvious question, which is who was paying for this particular speech.

• I wondered how on earth they got an audience so completely unrepresentative of Scottish opinion, and the answer was not hard to find. The audience has been selected “based both on current opinion polls and the last general election result.”

Health/Nutrition

• A lobbyist for Monsanto claimed that it was safe to drink “a quart” of the company’s Roundup pesticide, but pointedly refused to try even a sip when offered a glass during an interview with French TV before storming off the set.

• Patrick Moore told a Canal+ journalist that glyphosate, the active ingredient in the world’s most widely used weed killer, was not responsible for an increase in cancer rates in Argentina.

• “You can drink a whole quart of it and it won’t hurt you,” he insisted.

• When the journalist informed him that a cup of the herbicide was prepared for him, Moore bristled, saying: “I’m not stupid.”

• But when pressed by the interviewer if the substance was dangerous, Moore replied: “It’s not dangerous to humans.” He added that many try to commit suicide by drinking Roundup, but “fail regularly.”

• Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is poised to become the first top-tier presidential candidate from either party to make marijuana reform a major campaign issue.

• Paul, who will announce his White House bid on Tuesday, has argued forcefully that states should be allowed to adopt their own policies on the use of medical marijuana without fear of federal interference.

Security

• A new version of the popular Tor software that enables anonymous communication between computers around the world was released today, April 7, in order to fix two security issues discovered in the previous versions.

• The operator of an underground marketplace hosted within the Tor network has reported a flaw in Tor that he claims is being used for an ongoing denial of service attack on the site.

• The problem, which is similar to one reported by another hidden site operator in December on the Tor mailing list, allows attackers to conduct a denial of service attack against hidden sites by creating a large number of simultaneous connections, or “circuits,” via Tor, overwhelming the hidden service’s ability to respond.

• Jonathan LeBlanc of PayPal is on a mission is to replace the password with something more secure and easier to use.

Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

• Last week, at a crucial moment in nuclear negotiations between the U.S. and Iran, the New York Times published an op-ed by former U.S. Ambassador to the UN John Bolton titled “To Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran.” As I pointed out at the time, the Times accidentally undermined him by linking one of his key claims to an explanation of why that claim was wrong. After I asked about it, the Times changed the link.

• Bolton’s many other factual mistakes, detailed below, have also not been corrected — on top of which, Bolton failed to make a relevant disclosure about his paid work for a group that advocates the overthrow of the Iranian regime. It’s worth dwelling on these problems a bit given that Bolton’s perspective has a significant constituency in Congress — which could still derail the accord the White House is closing in on with the Iranians.

• With the end of the Obama presidency just around the corner, discussions of his administration’s foreign policy legacy are already well under way. But one central element of that policy has received little attention: the Obama administration’s dramatic acceleration of U.S. weapons exports.

• The numbers are astonishing. In President Obama’s first five years in office, new agreements under the Pentagon’s Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program—the largest channel for U.S. arms exports—totaled over $169 billion. After adjusting for inflation, the volume of major deals concluded by the Obama administration in its first five years exceeds the amount approved by the Bush administration in its full eight years in office by nearly $30 billion. That also means that the Obama administration has approved more arms sales than any U.S. administration since World War II.

Transparency Reporting

• I had not realised that Julian had so much Scottish ancestry or quite so recently. After independence, he will definitely be entitled to a Scottish passport!

Environment/Energy/Wildlife

• The Wall Street Journal editorial board recently recycled many of the same claims it made in a 2009 editorial titled, “California’s Man-Made Drought.” Right-wing website Hot Air dubbed the drought “California’s ‘man-made’ environmental disaster.” And when potential 2016 presidential candidate Carly Fiorina described the drought as “a man-made disaster” during an appearance on Glenn Beck’s radio show, Beck demanded to know why “we don’t hear that story on the news at all,” while Rush Limbaugh declared that “there is a man-made lack of water in California,” and “[Fiorina is] right.”

• No, these media figures haven’t suddenly seen the light on climate change. Instead, they’re using the historic drought as an opportunity to baselessly attack environmental policies.

• A fire has broken out at a Russian nuclear submarine during repair work at a shipyard in Severodvinsk. The cause of the fire is believed to be related to welding work on the sub.

• The United Shipbuilding Company confirmed the incident, adding that nobody was hurt in it. According to the the shipyard’s spokesperson, the submarine’s nuclear reactor was shut down and its weapons unloaded before the repair started.

• A Moscow radio station published a picture showing smoke billowing from the submarine.

• A Russian nuclear submarine has caught fire in a shipyard, according to news agency RIA Novosti.

• The 500m-long (1,640ft6) 949 Antei was being repaired on in Zvyozdochka shipyard in Russia’s northern province of Arkhangelsk, according to Russian news agency reports.

• Russian news agency Interfax cited a separate source as saying there were no weapons on board the submarine and other news agencies said the fire had started during welding, causing insulation materials to catch fire.

PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

• Experts in military and veteran suicide issues are criticizing National Rifle Association board member Ted Nugent for claiming that veterans are committing suicide because they believe President Obama “is the enemy.”

• The reaction from fans — and readers — might have been different if any of the reporters had asked actual security experts about the efficacy of metal detectors at preventing terrorism. Because as I found in researching the topic for Vice Sports (9/23/14) last fall, there’s no evidence that walkthrough metal detectors at airports or ballgames make anybody safer — and reason to believe they may even make us less safe.

Censorship

• The UK’s attempts to filter the Internet of all of its naughty bits are nothing if not amusing, whether it’s the nation’s porn filter architect getting arrested for child porn, or the complete and total obliviousness when it comes to the slippery slope of expanding those filters to include a growing roster of ambiguously objectionable material. The idea of forcing some kind of overarching structure upon porn consumption in the UK is another idea that never seems to go away, whether it’s requiring a “porn license” (requiring users to clearly opt in if they want to view porn) or the latest push — mandatory age checks.

Privacy

• Microsoft has reversed its position on the contentious Do Not Track (DNT) browser feature, saying Internet Explorer will no longer send DNT signals to websites by default.

• “Put simply, we are updating our approach to DNT to eliminate any misunderstanding about whether our chosen implementation will comply with the W3C standard,” Microsoft chief privacy officer Brendon Lynch said in a Friday blog post.

• Over the past few years we’ve followed the saga of TrueCrypt. The popular and widely used full disk encryption system got some attention soon after the initial Snowden leaks when people started realizing that no one really knew who was behind TrueCrypt, and that the software had not been fully audited. Cryptographer Matthew Green decided to lead an effort to audit TrueCrypt. A year ago, the team released the first phase, finding a few small vulnerabilities, but no backdoors and nothing too serious. This week the full audit was completed and again finds no evidence of any backdoors planted in the code.

• On the second floor of a narrow brick building in the London Borough of Islington, Edin Omanovic is busy creating a fake company. He is playing with the invented company’s business cards in a graphic design program, darkening the reds, bolding the blacks, and testing fonts to strike the right tone: informational, ambiguous, no bells and whistles. In a separate window, a barren website is starting to take shape. Omanovic, a tall, slender Bosnian-born, Scottish-raised Londonite gives the company a fake address that forwards to his real office, and plops in a red and black company logo he just created. The privacy activist doesn’t plan to scam anyone out of money, though he does want to learn their secrets. Ultimately, he hopes that the business cards combined with a suit and a close-cropped haircut will grant him access to a surveillance industry trade show, a privilege usually restricted to government officials and law enforcement agencies.

• The Department of Homeland Security aims to increase its domestic human intelligence collection activity this year, the Department recently told Congress.

• In a question for the record from a September 2014 congressional hearing, Rep. Paul C. Broun (R-GA) asked: “Do we currently have enough human intelligence capacity–both here in the homeland and overseas–to counter the threats posed by state and non-state actors alike?”

• Let me make something clear: I am pro dick pic. I mean, who doesn’t love the occasional consensual staring contest with a one eyed bandit? When Edward Snowden told everyone to keep taking dick pictures on Last Week Tonight, he was making an important point. Governments are meant to be accountable to people and controlled by them in democracies. Leaving aside any specific analysis of how much or whether America is really a democracy, Snowden’s message is profound and valid. We should have that freedom, and we have it by practicing that freedom at our governments. But we should be on a dick pic strike nevertheless.

Civil Rights

• Previously, Zeman said that his visit to Russia would be a “sign of gratitude for not having to speak German in this country.” He also intended to pay tribute to the memory of 150,000 Soviet soldiers who died liberating Czechoslovakia.

• Barrett Brown, the brash journalist and former member of Anonymous who was sentenced in January 2015 to over five years in federal prison, had his e-mail privileges suddenly revoked, seemingly for corresponding with journalists.

• On Sunday, Brown’s supporters published his account of the punishment, describing how he suddenly lost access to his prison-supplied e-mail account on March 31. In the ensuing days, Brown attempted to contact various prison officials to get further information, including someone named “Trust Fund Manager Coleman.”

• Malaysia has passed a controversial anti-terrorism bill, which the government says is needed to tackle the threat from Islamic extremists.

• The bill reintroduces indefinite detention without trial – something the prime minister had repealed in 2012.

• April 5th marked the five year anniversary of WikiLeaks publication of the Collateral Murder Video. The footage of a secret US military video depicted an Apache helicopter killing Iraqi civilians, including two Reuters journalists. It provided an uncensored view of modern war for the world to see. The light that shone in the darkness was the conscience of a young woman. Chelsea Manning (formally Bradley Manning) is now serving 35 years behind bars for her great public service.

• April 5 marked the five-year anniversary of the release of the Collateral Murder video by WikiLeaks. The shocking footage showed the entire world the 2007 US Apache attack helicopter airstrike on Baghdad that killed 12 people – including two Reuters staff members – and injured two small children.

• On 1 April 2015, Barack Obama signed into law an Executive Order “Blocking the Property of Certain Persons Engaging in Significant Malicious Cyber-Enabled Activities”

• Media reports speculated that the new powers granted by this Executive Order would enable executive authorities to confiscate cryptocurrency holdings and even prohibit donations to Edward Snowden’s defence fund.

• Since news of the Executive Order came to light, the bitcoin account for Edward Snowden’s official defence fund experienced a significant surge in donations , due at least in part to this post on reddit. We have received over 200 separate donations this month, including a single donation of 8.49 bitcoin, or over 2000 US dollars.

• US President Barack Obama has issued an executive order authorising the Treasury Secretary to enact sanctions against those whom it deems to have “have materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for” cyber-related crimes.

• Reuters reports that even US lawmakers consider the order “surprisingly broad”, and investigative journalists are concerned about its wide-ranging scope.

• Vulnerable young boys were taken from a children’s care home in Belfast in the 1970s, trafficked to London and abused by powerful figures who were part of a Westminster pedophile ring, a victim has claimed.

• Richard Kerr, a victim of child sex abuse at the Kincora care home for boys, told Channel 4 News he also suffered abuse at London’s Elm Guest House and Dolphin Square.

• ANOTHER official at the National Democratic Assembly (Al Wahdawi) has been arrested for allegedly criticising military action in Yemen.

• Deputy secretary general Mohammed Al Motawa was yesterday accused of spreading false and malicious information about Operation Decisive Storm, led by Saudi Arabia and nine allied countries, including Bahrain.

• The coalition countries launched air strikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen on Thursday after Shi’ite militias sought to topple the Yemeni government led by President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

• A Pakistani judge on Tuesday ordered that criminal charges be filed against a former CIA lawyer who oversaw its drone program and the one-time chief agency operative in Islamabad over a 2009 strike that killed two people.

• Former acting general counsel John A. Rizzo and ex-station chief Jonathan Bank must face charges including murder, conspiracy, terrorism and waging war against Pakistan, Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui of the Islamabad High Court ruled. A court clerk and a lawyer involved the case, Mirza Shahzad Akbar, confirmed details of the judge’s ruling.

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