● 09.30.15

● Links 30/9/2015: New Kernels, Nexus Devices

Posted in News Roundup at 11:33 am by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

• I soon discovered that Natalia wasn’t to be found in that 90 plus percent of new users. I spent another 30 minutes explaining where her “program files” were as well as some other “hidden” files she might need. I also purchase for her “Understanding the Linux File System Hierarchy.” Over the years, and specifically since 2008, there have been only eight Reglue Kids who would benefit from that book, and a book we gladly purchased for them. The stinger here is that Natalia is a full four years younger than the last person who received that book from us. Did I mention that Natalia is a gifted child? Oh, yeah…I probably did.

• The Chip PC was crowdfunded through a Kickstarter campaign that raised more than $2 million, many times the $50,000 goal that the computer’s developers wanted.

Desktop

• This is the first product of Libiquity to achieve RYF certification. The Taurinus X200 has the same architecture and certified software as the Libreboot X200, which was certified in January 2015. The Taurinus X200 can be purchased from Libiquity at https://shop.libiquity.com/product/taurinus-x200.

• The Taurinus X200 is a refurbished and updated laptop based on the Lenovo ThinkPad X200, with all of the original low-level firmware and operating system software replaced. It runs the FSF-endorsed Trisquel GNU/Linux operating system and the free software boot system, Libreboot. Perhaps most importantly, all of Intel’s Management Engine (ME) firmware and software has been removed from this laptop.

• I love the Linux desktop. As far as I’m concerned, the Linux Mint 17.2 is the best desktop around. Heck, I was once editor-in-chief of a website called Linux Desktop. But today, I believe there’s no way the Linux desktop will ever become the top desktop operating system.

• One can also remember Valve’s release of a native Linux Steam client, the systemd storm, the bankruptcy of Mandriva S.A., the tension between the Ubuntu community and Canonical, to mention some of the most notorious changes in the world of Linux in these four years that have elapsed since the map was created.

• The mobile revolution has trained many people to use touch screens instead of mice or trackpads. But how well do Linux desktop environments perform when it comes to touch? DistroWatch looked at various Linux desktops to find out how well they work as touch interfaces.

• Palau may be tiny but apparently Paluans love GNU/Linux.

• In a new development, it has been revealed that Indian Govt. may replace Windows across all offices with their own – open source OS. Called Bharat Operating System (BOSS), which was in testing and the results are satisfactory. In fact even Indian Army couldn’t break the code of Boss OS. Adavnaced version of it would be unveiled, while this week, a high level conference is scheduled by Union Home Ministry. Announcements regarding replacing Windows can be taken during this meeting, and it’s mandatory to use only open source software in Govt. offices.

• A little while back one of our readers e-mailed me and asked if I would experiment with the commonly used Linux desktops and report on how well they worked with touch interfaces. This is unusual territory for me. I generally do not like using touch interfaces, though I have worked with them on and off for over a decade. I tend to find navigating by swipes and finger presses cumbersome and unpleasant. I suspect part of the problem is my fingers are somewhat large, the buttons I am aiming at are often small (by comparison) and I dislike seeing finger prints on my screens.

• Still, I own a laptop that features a touch screen and so I loaded up several desktops on the device and experimented with each one in turn. The laptop is a de-branded HP with Intel video drivers and an approximately 15-inch screen. During most of this trial the laptop was running Linux Mint Debian Edition 2 (LMDE 2), which is based on Debian “Jessie”. Prior to starting this trial I had the Cinnamon, KDE 4 and Lumina desktop environments on this laptop. I added LXDE, MATE and Xfce. I attempted to install GNOME Shell as well, but ran into dependency conflicts, which I suspect relate to already having Cinnamon on the device. To work around this I downloaded a copy of Fedora and ran GNOME Shell from the live environment. Since Unity is not available in the software repositories of Linux Mint Debian Edition I downloaded a recent release of Ubuntu and used Ubuntu’s live environment to test Unity 7.

• Icebergs is a start-up that’s offering a cloud service that lets you run Linux desktop sessions in a web browser using HTML5. The goal is to allow programming work to be done on any machine without having to install Linux every time.

• The pay-as-you-go service runs Ubuntu Linux with an Xfce desktop environment for a fast and lightweight experience in the browser. It offers root access so you can install the software you need. The service is also optimised for touch screen devices so you can even use it on a small smartphone screen if you so desire.

• Are open source desktops ready for smartphones, tablets and other touch-enabled devices? That’s the question a DistroWatch writer recently set out to answer. Here’s a summary of what he found, and why it matters for the commercial open source world today.

• The Linux Foundation is now recommending that users with new and shiny Chromebooks should really install Linux along their Chrome OS distros.

• Chromebooks, which are cloud-connected devices that require constant Internet access, are notorious for low-end specs. This includes paltry processors and tiny storage space plus very little expansion capabilities.

• Choosing an alternative to Windows 98 and learning Linux — back in the 90s — led Jack Wallen to his current career. How did you get started with Linux?

• This summer will mark my 10th year as a Linux user. Reflecting recently on that upcoming milestone, I began thinking about how my attitudes toward Linux and open source software have evolved since that time. Here are my four stages of life in the Linux world.

• In a bid to move away from reliance on Microsoft’s Windows, the Chinese government has built itself its own operating system to use instead. The result, named NeoKylin, looks almost exactly like Windows XP.

Server

• Network Monitor now gives IT pros the ability to actively monitor Linux-based server environments, invite colleagues to view and create custom dashboards, fine-tune alert settings and understand communication issues associated with offline devices.

• There is more raw power in silicon per square millimeter than there has ever been. With the advent of distributed computing — and cloud and container technology running on specialized hardware — performance analysis tools are primarily facing two challenges:

• As containerization goes mainstream, many are finding new applications and use cases for container technology. Jan Pazdziora, senior principal software engineer at Red Hat, faced the limitations of traditional Docker when he wanted to containerize FreeIPA. This led to creation of his Docker-freeipa open source work.

• Jan has a talk coming up on the project at this year’s LinuxCon Europe. Jan has rich experience in open source, and we had a productive time discussing topics ranging from complex use cases for Docker, to open source software as a whole, and the future of Perl.

• In Architecting Containers Part 1 we explored the difference between user space and kernel space. In this post, we will continue by exploring why the user space matters to developers, administrators, and architects. From a functional perspective, we will explore the connection that both ISV applications and in-house application development have to the user space.s

• The key to whether it is a good idea to replace services hosted on a Microsoft OS with services hosted on a Linux OS is whether or not your systems administration team is familiar with managing servers running Linux. If your team has skilled Linux systems administrators, then transitioning is definitely a reasonable option. If your team is unfamiliar with Linux, you are likely to be better off upgrading to Windows Server 2012 R2.

• CA Southern Africa has revealed that CA Technologies has become a founding Platinum member of The Linux Foundation’s new Open Mainframe Project. The project is designed to create a collaborative environment among top industry leaders and academic institutions to drive both improvements and enterprise innovation on the mainframe. The project will initially focus on reinforcing four key areas: scalability, availability, performance and security.

Audiocasts/Shows

• The show covers Open Source, technology, politics, and more, and features interviews, reviews, and plenty of loose, fun, and at times argumentative discussion.

Kernel Space

• While there’s sadly not been much in the way of new feature development activity for Reiser4, this out-of-tree file-system continues to be ported to new versions of the Linux kernel.

• I’m announcing the release of the 4.2.2 kernel.

• All users of the 4.2 kernel series must upgrade.

• The updated 4.2.y git tree can be found at: git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable.git linux-4.2.y and can be browsed at the normal kernel.org git web browser:

• http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-st…

• After announcing the release of Linux kernel 4.2.2, Greg Kroah-Hartman has informed users of the Linux 4.1 LTS kernel branch that the ninth maintenance version is now available for download, urging them to update as soon as possible.

• On September 29, renowned kernel developer and maintainer of several Linux branches Greg Kroah-Hartman had the pleasure of announcing the immediate availability for download of the second point of Linux kernel 4.2.

• First and foremost, make sure you are having fun. Find an itch to scratch—something that bothers you about FOSS software you use and where fixing it lies within your skill set. I believe it is important to start with small tasks and actually finish them so that you get a sense of fulfillment, rather than biting off something too big to chew.

Graphics Stack

• AMD has confirmed that it has a Linux driver for its Vulkan card and have one prototype already – the only problem is that it is closed source.

Applications

• Like many of you, I too have found myself wooed by the convenience of using Dropbox. It’s cross platform, simple to setup and provides a cloud storage option for those who might otherwise be less inclined to store files off-site. In this article I’ll explore alternatives to Dropbox for Linux users.

• The developers of the Git open-source distributed version control system have just announced the release and immediate availability for download of the Git 2.6.0 software for GNU/Linux, Microsoft Windows, and Mac OS X operating systems.

• Slack has completely changed the way that we used to communicate to one and other. Slack allows to join multiple teams and talk to them effectively without any distraction. But Slack can be more handy, if you’ve Slack client in your Linux (No more web app), but slack does not have any official client for Linux. But thanks to ScudCloud! An unofficial, open-source and nice tool for using Slack in Linux. So let’s see how to install & use ScudCloud in Linux distributions.

• Though there are a number of other open source tools which are great for Linux administrators, the above five Linux open source tools are indomitable.

• FFmpeg’s Ganesh Ajjanagadde has announced that the next release of the open-source and cross-platform FFmpeg multimedia framework will include an improved FFplay media player component.

• SMPlayer, a Qt front-end for mplayer, has reached version 15.9.0 recently, this being the first stable version to support mpv. There are various other new features as well, like support for 3D stereo filter, MPRIS v2 support, a new default theme and more.

• The Pragha is a less known application for playing music, but it’s the kind of app that makes you wonder why it’s not a lot more frequently used and famous. It’s simple, good, and does exactly what it says on the cover. Who doesn’t want that?

• Calamares is a new system installation framework designed to be easily customized and used as the installation program for any Linux distribution.

• Last week I have released tunir 0.8. In this release I have fixed few bugs related to better logging. But most of the work was wnet on vagrant support. We now support both Virtualbox, and libvirt based vagrant images. There is a new key in the job.json file called provider, if you give the value virtualbox, then tunir will use vagrant along with Virtualbox, otherwise it will try to use vagrant-libvirt provider (which is default for our usage). There is separate page in the docs which explains the configurations.

Proprietary

• Foxit Reader is a popular free to use (but proprietary) PDF viewer available for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X. Compared to the Windows version, Foxit PDF Reader for Linux lacks some features – most importantly, the ability to create PDF files, but the app still has quite a few useful features.

Instructionals/Technical

• About six months ago, I started to notice that there is a lot of hubbub going around in the tech-o-sphere about containers as a new way to approach virtual computing. I like exploring new technology, so I’ve spent the last few months getting the ins and outs of them. Here’s what I can tell you: Containers are an important technology that is not going away anytime soon. There are a lot of players in the space, and new ones enter all the time. If you are a developer in the modern world, understanding and using containers are necessary skills to have in your professional life.

Games

• Sad news folks, Alien: Isolation has been delayed for Linux. There is no set release date now, but this gives them time to polish it up.

• That’s really not a lot of sales for both platforms put together, but the thing to takeaway here is that SWTG is a very niche game. It’s not my type of game, and I don’t personally ever plan to buy it. I imagine a lot of people also feel the same way about it. That’s not to say it isn’t a good game, I just burnt myself out on retro type games a long time ago.

• After announcing the availability of the last Alpha build of their upcoming Prison Architect game, Introversion Software reveals the fact that the final version of Prison Architect will be released next week when it leaves Steam Early Access.

• The gamepad support on Linux is a little iffy right now too, as my Logitech F310 was mapped completely wrong. If I could have that gamepad working correctly, I would probably enjoy it more too.

• Skullgirls has finally made a Linux appearance!

• I haven’t played a Pinball game in many, many years, so Hyperspace Pinball was quite fun to see come to Linux.

• Today, independent indie game publisher, Maximum OverDose, and EggHead Games are proud to announce the release of #I.X – a top-down, indie shooter for PC/Linux that pays homage to classics such as Team 17′s Alien Breed and 20th Century Fox’s action/horror film franchise, Aliens.

• It wasn’t long ago that gamers avoided Linux like the plague, citing the lack of games as their main reason. When I was growing up, there were next to no major games to play on Linux and it seemed no developers cared to try. However, with the help of companies like Valve, 2K, and Aspyr Media, that’s quickly changing. More and more games are becoming available, with even some being Linux exclusives, including a launch on Steam of Don’t be a Patchman this past July.

• Good news for Jagged Alliance fans, as it looks like another game in the series will come to Linux. The reviews are a bit mixed on this one though.

• Humble Indie Bundle 15 is a new collection of games that brings to the Linux platform Skullgirls, and a number of other older names that were already available.

• Feral Interactive has just published some very sad news regarding the launch of Alien: Isolation – The Collection for the Linux platform. The game won’t be launching today and it has been postponed.

• Alien: Isolation -The Collection will arrive tomorrow and Feral Interactive, the studio that ported the game for Linux users, has just released the official system requirements.

• Jotun is a new action-adventure title developed and published by Thunder Lotus Games released on Steam for Linux, and it’s currently being discounted by 15%.

• Alien: Isolation is on its way to haunt Linux gamers, with Creative Assembly’s first-person horror game being ported to Linux by Feral Interactive.

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

• As I loved to do digital painting I surfed the internet for good apps. All of them were great but they were not free… well, I ended up with Krita! My first favourite thing about Krita is that it’s free! That’s good because there are so many young artists out there who deserve to use any free available programs as good as Krita. Krita has TONS of awesome brushes and you can use a variety of them!

GNOME Desktop/GTK

• The GNOME 3.18 Linux desktop, released Sept. 23, offers a milestone feature update. Code-named Gothenburg, the new open-source desktop environment benefits from 25,112 changes from 772 contributors. The GNOME 3.18 desktop includes improvements to the Files utility that make it easier for users to find, access and manage folders as well as files. There is now also a cleaner integration with Google Drive that can enable a user to directly access files from the cloud inside GNOME 3.18. Linux desktop users will also be able to choose a desktop setting that will automatically adjust screen brightness based on ambient lighting conditions. Keeping the hardware firmware on a Linux system updated is easier and more streamlined in GNOME 3.18, thanks to new support for the Linux vendor firmware update service. GNOME 3.18 includes updates to multiple GNOME applications, such as the Documents app, which benefits from a new user interface. The Calendar app has enhanced management features so users can more easily control information. The new release of Builder provides an improved developer experience with source code auto-completion for Python. Here’s a look at key features of the GNOME 3.18.

• It has been an interesting process and a tad more difficult this cycle. Initial thoughts were laid into the video back in July but I have been doing the bulk of the work in September as can be seen from the rough activity schedule below. This is not really optimal of course – in comparison my activity on the GNOME 3.16 release video was much more scattered.

Distributions

• During the first 16 hours in orbit, we have received nearly 1000 packets of LilacSat-2 from Harbin (BY2HIT), Shihezi (B0/BY2HIT), Nanjing (BI4ST), Xian (Northwestern Polytechnical University) and Singapore (9V1SV). Many thank to all!

Reviews

• VectorLinux has no live session releases to let users try it out. Not having a live session is a severe disservice. It is also a big inconvenience in determining if the OS works on your gear. This illustrates everything that is wrong with VectorLinux’s distribution approach. It reinforces everything that detractors say about Linux being hard to install and confusing to set up.

New Releases

• The Solus operating system is moving closer to its October 1 release and developers are putting the final touches on the operating system, even if that means making some important improvements and changes.

PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandriva Family

• Today in Linux news, Mageia 5 showed well on reviewer Jesse Smith’s AMD machine. My Linux Rig scored an interview with Jim Whitehurst about his Linux setup and Clem Lefebvre announced the next Mint will be named Rosa. Elsewhere, PCWorld compiled a slideshow of Linus Torvald’s favorite tech pet peeves and Bradley Kuhn blogged on security issues using global email systems.

Gentoo Family

• Sabayon 15.10 is a modern and easy to use Linux distribution based on Gentoo, following an extreme, yet reliable, rolling release model. This is a monthly release generated, tested and published to mirrors by our build servers containing the latest and greatest collection of software available in the Entropy repositories.

• The Change log files related to this release are available on our mirrors. The list of packages included in each Sabayon flavor is available inside*.pkglist files. Our team is always busy packaging the latest and greatest stuff. If you want to have a look at what’s inside our repositories, just go to our packages website. Please read on to know where to find the images and their torrent files on our mirrors.

• Just a few minutes ago, the developers of the rolling-release Sabayon GNU/Linux distribution based on the acclaimed Gentoo operating system have announced the release and immediate availability for download of Sabayon 15.10.

Arch Family

• The Manajro Linux distribution is now at its 15.09 milestone, providing a new graphical installer called ‘Calmares.’

• Beyond the typical suite of open-source tools in many Linux distributions, Majaro developers emphasize the broad support for multiple Linux kernels in the 15.09 release

• VeltOS is a new Linux distribution based on Arch Linux that wants to do something that hasn’t been tried before, and that is to move the decision process in the hands of the community.

• A gift and curse of Linux-based operating systems is the large selection. It is very cool that there are so many operating systems to choose from, but a good amount of them are crap. In other words, you have to sift through hundreds of fringe distros to discover the gems.

Ballnux/SUSE

• SUSE, through George Shi, had the great pleasure of announcing the release of the Toolchain Module for their SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 operating system, which includes the GCC (GNU Compiler Collection) software and related projects.

Slackware Family

• The previous update was targeted for August but due to the difficulties I had in compiling all packages, that release slipped to early September. That is why I can announce a second September release for my KDE 5 packages for Slackware. The KDE 5_15.09_02 update contains all new software: Frameworks 5.14.0, Plasma 5.4.1 and Applications 15.08.1.

Red Hat Family

• In the technology world today, Linux has become the platform around which innovative people are building the next generation of computing. People are building the most exciting applications, languages, and frameworks to run on Linux. It’s the default platform for burgeoning technological ecosystems around problems like big data, mobile, and analytics. Without Linux, all this activity simply wouldn’t exist.

• Red Hat was upgraded by analysts at Zacks from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating.

• Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE:RHT) has received a buy rating for the short term, according to the latest rank of 2 from research firm, Zacks.

• Oppenheimer restated their outperform rating on shares of Red Hat (NYSE:RHT) in a research report sent to investors on Wednesday, AnalystRatingsNetwork.com reports. The firm currently has a $88.00 target price on the open-source software company’s stock.

• Many observers missed one of the most important aspects of the earnings report, though, which is that Red Hat’s OpenStack cloud computing effort is beating its own expectations. The huge news about the quarter was that the company reached $100 million in terms of its annual cloud computing revenue run rate. It had forecasted hitting that milestone in Q3, not Q2.

Fedora

• I just upgraded not one, not two, not three, but four of my Fedora systems using the dnf system-upgrade plugin and it worked like a charm in each case. Three were workstation installations while the last was a server installation, and I’m happy to report that after the upgrade, they’re all alive and healthy!

Debian Family

• We have been informed by the developers of the well-known Linux AIO project that their Linux AIO Debian Live 7 ISO image has been updated, now based on the recently released Debian GNU/Linux 7.9.0 (Wheezy) operating system.

• Yes, it is that Jessie, but not in that context. The Raspbian operating system is based on Debian Linux, and the different versions of Debian are named after characters from the “Toy Story” films. Recent versions of Raspbian have been based on Debian Wheezy (the penguin who’s lost his squeaker in “Toy Story 2”), but Raspbian has now been updated to the new stable version of Debian, which is called Jessie.

• The Raspbian developers have just updated their Linux distribution, and it’s now based on Debian 8 “Jessie,” the latest stable version available right now.

Derivatives

• Updates for my multi-boot/multi-purpose USB stick: All components have been updated to the latest versions and I have confirmed that all of them still boot properly – although changes in the grub.cfg file are necessary. So going through these explanations one will end up with a usable USB stick that can boot you into TAILS, System Rescue CD, GNU Parted Live CD, GRML, and also can boot into an installation of Debian 8.2 Jessie installation. All this while still being able to use the USB stick as normal media.

Canonical/Ubuntu

• Unity, that is the Ubuntu user interface, that nobody else uses.

• Since it is a Ubuntu-only thing, few applications have native support for its OSX-style hipster “global” menus.

• It’s difficult to gage the success of the Ubuntu Phones, but there are three devices with Ubuntu in the wild and one of them is no longer available. On the other hand, the official website does say “more Ubuntu phones coming soon.”

• The Ubuntu 15.04, 14.04 LTS, and Ubuntu 12.04 LTS operating systems have just received a new update for the Nvidia drivers in order to correct a security issue.

• The Ubuntu Team is working to improve the fonts being used in the operating system and they are now asking the community for help with the Arabic language.

• We believe that the first impression matters, especially when it comes to introducing a new product to a user for the first time. Our aim is to delight the user from the moment they open the box, through to the setup wizard that will help them get started with their new phone.

• Linux in the web browser is not a new concept to us, especially because even Canonical, the maker of Ubuntu Linux, has an Online tour of their computer operating system, which users can always try for free at http://tour.ubuntu.com/en/.

• Just a few moments ago, Canonical has announced that a new kernel update is available for its current long-term supported Ubuntu Linux operating system, Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr), patching two critical issues discovered by various developers.

• After introducing the Black Lab Appliance Server, Roberto J. Dohnert from Black Lab Software had the great pleasure of informing us earlier today about the immediate availability of the Black Lab Linux Server 7 operating system.

• One of the things that Ubuntu fans were waiting too see this year was the new phone from BQ that aimed to use the convergence concept to its fullest, but it seems that the launch date has slipped into 2015.

• The Ubuntu Touch operating system is preparing for the seventh OTA update and developers have decided to hit the feature freeze milestone this week.

• Canonical’s Michael Terry sent an interesting email to the Ubuntu Touch mailing list to discuss the possibility of implementing a method for detecting native Ubuntu Touch apps and X-Ubuntu-Touch apps.

• Canonical is making some changes to the way micro-updates are being handled for all the Ubuntu branches, which should make the distribution a lot more flexible.

• Canonical, through Steph Wilson, revealed earlier today, September 28, the fact that they are working on a new UI design for their acclaimed Ubuntu Linux computer operating system and Ubuntu Touch mobile OS.

• Canonical’s Oliver Grawert announced the release of the new and improved Raspberry Pi 2 image of the Ubuntu Snappy Core 15.04 operating system. Being based on the latest Linux 4.2 kernel, the Ubuntu Snappy Core 15.04 Raspberry Pi 2 image is now available for download to all Raspberry Pi 2 users.

• Just a few moments ago, Canonical has announced that a new kernel update is available for its current long-term supported Ubuntu Linux operating system, Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr), patching two critical issues discovered by various developers.

• The Ubuntu 15.04, 14.04 LTS, and Ubuntu 12.04 LTS operating systems have just received a new update for the Nvidia drivers in order to correct a security issue.

• After I wrote the guide on how to schedule downloads in Windows and Ubuntu, somebody wrote to me a very long email after they read the piece.

• According to the tirade, Wget is the best download manager ever and how dare I tell people to use aria2c without mentioning this core truth. The diatribe ended by telling me how I should do the world a favour and show myself the way to the after world.

• As you may already know, Canonical has been working a lot lately at Ubuntu Desktop, Ubuntu Touch, Mir, Unity and convergence.

• Recently, Canonical’s Pat McGowan has announced that the first Ubuntu-convergent mobile phone will be released in 2016, the vendor being still unknown from now.

• The convergent Ubuntu system will be using the same code base for both Ubuntu Touch and Ubuntu Desktop but the UI will behave different on the two platforms. While the windows will be full screen on the mobile devices, on Ubuntu Desktop, the windows will still be minimizable and will have X and – buttons on the top corner.

Flavours and Variants

• Yes, you guessed it right!

• With a release of a new version of Ubuntu 15.10 less than a month away, many of you already looking for downloading of your own ISO image of the system. Yes, that’s the next version, codenamed Wily Werewolf.

• But many of you are not so lucky, and will need to wait longer, because you can not or do not want to create their own DVDs with operating system images. We can help!

Devices/Embedded

• Google rolled out a pair of second-generation Chromecast media players, including a replacement for the original HDMI Chromecast and an audio-only model.

• Google today formally introduced its expected second generation Chromecast media streaming adapter, and as had been widely expected there are some welcome enhancements, along with the addition of an audio-only model. Both versions — dubbed “Chromecast 2015” and “Chromecast Audio” — are priced at $35, and are currently shipping within about two weeks of new orders. Also today, Google announced a pair of new Nexus smartphones based on Android 6.0 (aka “Marshmallow”): the Nexus 6P and Nexus 5X (see farther below).

• Linux, by the way, is the operating system of the Roku box, and it’s a heavily modified version called the Roku OS. Starting with the version 1.0, Roku has continued to modify the software for bug fixes, update of security, additional features, and revisions for its interface. Anybody can add his or her own favorite channel on the Roku box.

Phones

• My first Firefox OS device was the Geeksphone Revolution. Hardware wise it was a quite nice device, but the size just didn’t fit my hand and so I droped it a few times until the display was broken.

• At that time – beginning of 2015 – I rather tended to go with anohther Firefox OS phone. Luckily the Alcatel One Touch Fire E got introduced at that time and I went with it (paying around € 120,-).

Tizen

• The Tizen Operating System is faster and easier to use, and has a very user-friendly interface.

• Exciting news today as we get something quite un-expected. Developer mode is now available as part of new firmwares for select Tizen TVs. This enables developers to test their apps directly on a Smart TV. In order to get this functionality, you need to be on the latest firmwares as listed below:

Android

• BlackBerry on Friday announced that it would introduce an Android smartphone later this year. The announcement came during the company’s Q2 earnings call. The device will be known as the “Priv” and will be built around user privacy, said CEO John Chen. “Priv combines the best of BlackBerry security and productivity with the expansive mobile application ecosystem available on the Android platform,” he added. BlackBerry didn’t offer any specifics about the Priv beyond the name — nothing about pricing, U.S. carrier partners or any handset specs.

• Well, that all depends on your phone. If it’s a high-end device from a well-known manufacturer such as Sony, Samsung or HTC, it’s almost certain that an upgrade to Marshmallow will become available to it. However, don’t expect to get the upgrade until early 2016, since it will first roll out to Nexus devices.

• Chen’s lack of familiarity with Android doesn’t necessarily reflect company-wide expertise, but we’ll have to wait until we get our hands on the Priv itself to really judge BlackBerry’s success here. The company says we’ll be hearing more about the 5.5-inch device in the coming weeks, with the phone hitting stores “late in the calendar year.”

• The Blackphone is a fine device. It’s attractive, it’s fast. There’s a wonderful array of easy-to-use security settings, surpassing anything on the market, whilst much of the good work is done by the Silent Circle crew patching vulnerabilities and issuing updates. For dilettantes of the privacy and security spheres, or anyone who wants good protection from digital threats with little fuss, the Blackphone 2 is an ideal choice.

• Silent Circle and Fairphone, which each offer smartphones that run extensively forked versions of Android, will soon ship powerful second-generation models.

• Alternative Android distributions have grown increasingly popular in recent years, from CyanogenMod to the OnePlus 2’s Oxygen OS to Chinese Android variants like Xiaomi’s MIUI. Last year, two more Android flavors also arrived in specialty phones that aim to find a niche in the smartphonosphere. First, there was the ultra-secure Blackphone from Silent Circle, and then the modular, environmentally and ethically focused Fairphone.

• The stainless steel body of the Huawei Watch screams the utmost premium quality, adding a touch of class to your wrist, all the while fooling everyone into believing that you’re wearing a traditional watch. Little do they know that you’re wearing a computer on your wrist. This sought after feature has an obvious draw to a particular audience that wishes to practice a bit of form over function.

• I did not miss Qi charging and I did not miss having a built in ambient light sensor. The Huawei Watch is most likely the best in class that Android Wear has to offer right now, even though there are a few aspects of the watch that might not be suitable for everyone. If you don’t mind the lack of an ambient light sensor and you don’t mind the need for a propriety charger, the elegance of the Huawei Watch makes this smartwatch a must have for anyone looking to purchase a premium smartwatch right now.

• If you stop and think about it, we’ve actually been in need of a decent starter watch for Android Wear. Something that doesn’t cost $300 (or more). Something that gets you the basic Android smartwatch experience without breaking the bank.

• The LG G Watch used to be that watch. More display on your wrist than watch-looking watch, it can be had for around $100 these days. But it doesn’t look like much. That’s where the ASUS ZenWatch 2 definitely trumps it. And it does so for a paltry sum.

• To satisfy the curiosity out there, here are the first official images of PRIV. Keep watching this blog and our social channels for more images, videos and details about PRIV’s specs. We’ll also soon post how you can register to receive the latest information about PRIV, including when and how to buy it.

• About 1.4 billion devices around the world now use the Android mobile operating system, said Google CEO Sundar Pichai. The figure is up from the 1 billion that Google announced in May. Pichai said many of those users are in emerging economies such as Vietnam and Indonesia. The US Census Bureau estimates about 7.3 billion people live around the world, which means Google has extended the reach of its Android software to more than 19 percent of the Earth’s inhabitants.

• The big surprise at today’s Google announcement was the Pixel C, an Android tablet developed by the team behind the Pixel Chromebooks. The Chromebook Pixels have powerhouses of speed and wonders of design — and they definitely had the prices to match those outsized ambitions. The same thing applies to the Pixel C. It starts at $499, but you’re also going to want to pony up for the keyboard, which costs $149. That’s pretty-good laptop territory, so does the Pixel C actually compete with a pretty-good laptop?

• The Blackphone 2, the second device from the Swiss company Silent Circle, is unique. It promises a fully private experience, with advanced security features, deep permissions management, and encrypted voice, text, and video chat built in. The phone, which runs a heavily modified version of Android, lets you fiddle with the most granular permissions settings of all your apps, giving you a level of privacy control that far exceeds that of regular Android phones. And when you make a call, send a text, or fire up a videoconference, your communications travel encrypted across Silent Circle’s private cloud VPN, better protecting you from spies.

• You’re going to want Android Marshmallow. Google’s latest version of Android may sound like a single headline feature followed by a list of tiny improvements, but they all add up to one important update — there’s a reason Google is calling this release Android 6.0.

• Google has updated its Nexus smartphone range with two new handsets powered by the latest build of Android, codenamed Marshmallow.

• “Nexus is for Android because we’ve designed it,” Google’s newish CEO Sundar Pichai told the press at Tuesday’s launch in San Francisco, meaning that the new phones have been designed to squeeze the most out of Android 6.0 aka Marshmallow. Hopefully for Google that will have customers asking it for s’more (sorry).

Free Software/Open Source

• Open source’s technology leadership, along with an exponential increase in the sheer number of projects, leads to a final, somewhat ironic observation: It’s still tough to be an independent vendor of open source software. Those few vendors who stick to the traditional pay-for-support-only model tend to struggle, whereas an increasing number of “commercial open source” companies offer multi-tiered subscriptions that recall the proprietary world. In the latter case, less capable community versions sometimes remind you of old-fashioned “free trial” software.

• Before Emby, I had limited open source experience. I submitted small bug fixes here and there to different projects that I took an interest in. The Media Browser project was always fully open source, and with the re-branding to Emby we felt that was the best way for the project to continue moving forward.

• Open source wireless router firmware may become tougher to install in the United States, if not illegal. That’s if device manufacturers interpret new Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules involving radio frequencies to mean that user-modified software should be banned.

• The open source community generally hasn’t produced many security analysis tools. For the most part, the tools required to do malware research are available only under a commercial license from security vendors that sell security software and hardware.

• Twitter has about a couple thousand engineers across the company working on a variety of technologies, from as deep as the Linux kernel to front-end Javascript libraries. It’s hard to pick anything in particular, but recently we have graduated Apache Parquet from the Apache incubator and are working on adding stateful service primitives to the Apache Mesos project so we can run MySQL in a Mesos cluster.

• Building an open-source community takes dedication, hard work and no small number of late nights. As a community gets started there is generally a sense of momentum, ownership and deep commitment. But what happens once your community becomes established and successful? Inevitably volunteers are going to cycle in and out. As a community leader, you need to consider methods to bring in new members, spread the workload and communicate where and when the project could use help. How can you maximize growth and maintain your momentum?

• Open source data visualization technologies have matured to the point where users say the available tools can handle large amounts of their visualization workloads.

• Would software-related scandals, such as Volkswagen’s use of proprietary software to lie to emissions inspectors, cease if software freedom were universal? Likely so, as I wrote last week. In a world where regulations mandate distribution of source code for all the software in all devices, and where no one ever cheats on that rule, VW would need means other than software to hide their treachery.

• Universal software freedom is my lifelong goal, but I realized years ago that I won’t live to see it. I suspect that generations of software users will need to repeatedly rediscover and face the harms of proprietary software before a groundswell of support demands universal software freedom. In the meantime, our community has invented semi-permanent strategies, such as copyleft, to maximize software freedom for users in our current mixed proprietary and Free Software world.

• The volume of new open source projects is staggering. In years past, it was sometimes difficult to find enough quality projects to fill a lenghthy list, but this year there were more than enough—so many, in fact, that it’s likely we overlooked some deserving projects.

• In addition to Otto, HashiCorp launched Nomad, an open-source scheduler for deployment and resource maximization.

• In an age where data availability and visibility is crucial, many organisations have found that their existing infrastructure has severely limited their options. Sometimes this is down to poor system design that prevents interoperability, but in others the intention is deliberate – a practice known as ‘vendor lock-in’.

• File hosting service Dropbox, Inc has released its Zulip chat application under an open source Apache Foundation licence.

Web Browsers

Mozilla

• Mozilla’s mission is to promote openness, innovation, and opportunity on the web.

• The Science Lab represents an important community of practice where we can model training around open data and open source, project-based learning, and offer fellowships and mentorship programs to further leadership development around these areas.

SaaS/Big Data

• FusionSphere 6.0 is an open source platform and Huawei claims that it complies with native OpenStack standards, and supports OpenStack application programming interfaces (APIs). Third-party applications for OpenStack can purportedly run seamlessly on Huawei FusionSphere 6.0.

Databases

• It’s always fighting talk when a vendor makes an announcement foretelling the end of a technology approach. Is open source HAWQ really going to kill the traditional database?

Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

• LibreOffice was launched as a fork of OpenOffice.org on September 28, 2010, by a tiny group of people representing the community in their capacity of community project leaders. At the time it was a brave – although necessary – decision, because it was rather clear to everyone that OpenOffice.org was not going to survive for a long time under Oracle stewardship.

• In fact, the group of 16 founders launched an independent free software project under the stewardship of The Document Foundation, to fulfil the promise made by Sun ten years before – at the time of the first announcement of OpenOffice.org – of an independent free software foundation capable of pushing forward the free office suite to the next level.

• A new OpenOffice update, version 4.1.2, has been in preparation for a while. Born as a simple bugfix release, it became an occasion for some deep restructuring in the project: several processes have now been streamlined (and some are still in the works), new people are on board and infrastructure has been improved.

• Now the wait is almost over, and we are approaching the final phases before the 4.1.2 release. But we still need help with some non-development tasks, like QA and final preparations (press release, release notes and their translation).

• The second minor release to the milestone 5.0 branch was announced at the start of this year’s LibreOffice Conference, taking place in Aarhus, Denmark. Italo Vignoli posted to the Document Foundation blog of the latest LibreOffice release saying, “The LibreOffice 5.0 family is the most popular LibreOffice ever.” Today’s update brings over 110 fixes in several key areas.

• In two lengths, the book begins with those who initially announced the news of the fork. Charles Schulz, Leif Lodahi, and Micheal Meeks are among those included. Available in two lengths, the PDF book begins September 28, 2010 and ends with Lodahi’s template pitfalls post from Saturday. The full-length version contains 1227 pages verses the 668 of the shorter.

• The last release of OpenOffice, 4.1.1, was released almost one year ago and most folks have written the project off as dead or on life support. But Bruce Byfield today said it’s not dead yet and, in fact, may have made it over the hump. Meanwhile, The Document Foundation has been planning upcoming conferences and analyzing their success. In other news, some new goodies are in the pipeline for Mint Xfce and MATE users and Bryan Lunduke said the System 76 Serval Linux laptop is “ideal.”

CMS

• While the open source Drupal content management system (CMS) is freely available, there is money to be made in support and services. This is where Acquia, the lead commercial vendor behind Drupal, comes into play.

• Acquia today announced a new $55 million Series G equity financing round, with investors Centerview Capital Technology, New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and Split Rock Partners.

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

• DataBasin’s Select-Identify, an invaluable tool for many working with salesforce.com, showed erratic behaviour: extremely hard to reproduce even by sometimes re-running the same query on the same data set, the operation would just stop without any error in the console log, trapped exception or else.

• After extensive debugging I found the problem in the queryMore method of the API implementation in DataBasinKit. If queryMore had to return just one record, it would malfunction. Technically this happened because the size reported by Salesforce.com in the queryMore is not the size of the objects of the queryMore, but of the original query.

• We conducted an email-based interview with Noah Swartz of Privacy Badger. Privacy Badger is a browser add-on that detects and blocks third party tracking. If Privacy Badger notices a third party site that it thinks is attempting to track your browsing around the web it blocks it and prevents it from writing or reading cookies and other identifying information about your browser. Additionally Privacy Badger works with EFF’s newly drafted Do Not Track policy which aims to make user opt-out of online tracking a reality.

Public Services/Government

• Germany’s constitution makes the use of vendor-neutral ICT standards mandatory, according to the PhD thesis of Felix Greve, a German lawyer. The constitution demands minimum requirements for interoperability standards, Greve argues. The current lack of interoperability rules are a major barrier to the country’s uptake of free and open source software, in public administration and elsewhere.

• A multitude of interoperability problems is threatening Hungary’s central government use of free and open source office applications. Many of the government’s software solutions fail to take open document standards into account, stretching the office project’s support resources. The team is also finding it difficult to sustain support from IT management.

• [...]

• Last week, at the LibreOffice annual conference in Aarhus (Denmark), Kelemen spoke about the department’s implementation of the LibreOffice suite of office productivity tools. The project started in 2013, and will end in October this year.

• The European Commission has launched a public consultation on Standards for the Digital Single Market. The EC is asking for priorities for standards in important technology areas critical to achieving the single market.

• The portal is built on the Consul participation application, which is published by the City as open source software.

Licensing

• If you have thoughts on how to help make this automatable tracking of security, licensing, and copyright information available to the supply chain, ideas are most welcome. We’ll be having a Supply Chain Mini-Summit [8] in Dublin on Oct. 8th, and those interested in exploring this further are welcome to attend.

Openness/Sharing

• Kingston and Sutton ICT lead favours more regional, decentralised approach to data sharing, but sees value of certain national initiatives for purposes like ID assurance

• Ensuring the wider availability of open standards and common platforms will be vital to ensure local authorities are better able to engage in collaborative and shared service technology and data initiatives when opportunities arise, a London-based council ICT lead has said.

• Rob Miller, head of shared ICT services for Kingston and Sutton, said common ways of working and bringing key data resources together was a significant challenge needing to be addressed by local authorities to allow them to move forward with transformation work.

Hadoop/Spark

• Six months down the line from its creation, the Open Data Platform Hadoop initiative driven by Pivotal and Hortonworks has today unveiled new members, work on a core spec and reference implementation, plus a formal governance structure.

• It’s probably coincidence that Hadoop pioneer Cloudera and the Linux Foundation each announced Hadoop-related news that isn’t necessarily complementary, on the same day.

• But then again, the Strata + Hadoop World is taking over much of the Javits Center in New York City today through Thursday, so if you’ve got something big to say, there are plenty of open, interested ears to hear it.

Leftovers

Security

• Our cross signature is not yet in place, however this certificate is fully functional for clients with the ISRG root in their trust store. When we are cross signed, approximately a month from now, our certificates will work just about anywhere while our root propagates. We submitted initial applications to the root programs for Mozilla, Google, Microsoft, and Apple today.

• Akamai announced on Tuesday that its Security Intelligence Response Team has discovered a massive Linux-based botnet that’s reportedly capable of downing websites under a torrent of DDoS traffic exceeding 150 Gbps. The botnet spreads via a Trojan variant dubbed XOR DDoS. This malware infects Linux systems via embedded devices like network routers then brute forces SSH access. Once the malware has Secure Shell credentials, it secretly downloads and installs the necessary botnet software, then connects the newly-infected computer to the rest of the hive.

• At CoreOS, running containers securely is a number one priority. We recently landed a number of features that are helping make CoreOS Linux a trusted and even more secure place to run containers.

• As of the 808.0.0 release, CoreOS Linux is tightly integrated with SELinux to enforce fine-grained permissions for applications. Building on top of these permissions, our container runtime, rkt, has gained support for SVirt in addition to a default SELinux policy.

• According to distributed denial-of-service protection service CloudFlare, one customer’s site recently came under fire from 4.5 billion page requests during a few hours, mostly from smartphone browsers on Chinese IP addresses.

Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

• The legal position is perfectly clear. Syria has a recognised government, that of President Assad, represented at the United Nations. That government is legally entitled to call on Russian military assistance. Russian military action against ISIL is therefore legal.

• In the last decade, now 7/7 has dropped out of this statistic, only one person has been killed in the UK by an Islamic terrorist attack. Let me repeat that. In the last decade, one person has been killed in the UK by an Islamic terrorist attack. That unfortunate death was Lee Rigby.

Environment/Energy/Wildlife

• The Volkswagen emissions testing scandal may speed up stalled EU talks on more accurate tests, as the shock waves of the scandal continue to reverberate in Europe.

• [...]

• In 1998, Swedish researcher Per Kageson already wrote about the technologies that allow cars to pass the emission test without having lower pollution levels in the real world. He told the New York Times that nothing was done to “make it much more difficult for manufacturers to beat the tests”.

PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

• Stung by the campaign finance probe into potentially illegal coordination between Governor Scott Walker and independent campaign finance groups, the Wisconsin GOP is on the warpath. Governor Walker called for “dismantling” of the Government Accountability Board (GAB), the nonpartisan, independent agency that oversees Wisconsin elections, campaign finance and ethics laws.

• In Wednesday’s GOP presidential debate, Donald Trump boasted proudly about rejecting a $5 million check–but really, he was boasting about not flagrantly breaking the law.

• The PR man 60 Minutes dubbed “Dr. Evil”–Rick Berman–launched a new ad campaign this month against Chipotle.

• The profits of the fast food Mexican-style burrito company–which promotes whole foods over heavily processed factory food-type products–have surged while competitors like McDonalds and Burger King have tumbled. Chipotle has drawn a line in the sand on GMOs with its “G-M-Over It” campaign, as Americans’ concerns about genetically modified foods are growing.

Censorship

• The United Nations has disgraced itself immeasurably over the past month or so.

• If you were trying to put together a global all-star team of the most authoritarian, human rights abusing nations on earth, not only would Saudi Arabia be at the top of the list, it would be captain of the squad.

• It may not have intended to, precisely, but the United Nations just took sides in the Internet’s most brutal culture war.

• German Chancellor Angela Merkel was overheard confronting Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg over incendiary posts on the social network, Bloomberg reported on Sunday, amid complaints from her government about anti-immigrant posts in the midst of Europe’s refugee crisis.

• On the sidelines of a United Nations luncheon on Saturday, Merkel was caught on a hot mic pressing Zuckerberg about social media posts about the wave of Syrian refugees entering Germany, the publication reported.

Privacy

• For the second time in a week Facebook users received an error message when trying to access their accounts on Monday afternoon. When reached via email, a Facebook spokesperson said the outages were caused by a configuration issue. Service was restored by early evening.

• A factory refurbished Thinkpad shipped with Windows 7 and a scheduler app that ran once a day, collecting usage data about what you do with your computer and exfiltrating it to an analytics company.

• The fact that this was taking place was buried deep in the user “agreement” that came with the machine.

• This is the third preloaded spyware scandal to hit Lenovo this year: first it was caught installing Superfish, which grossly compromised user security by installing a man-in-the-middle certificate into the operating system; then it got caught loading immortal, self-reinstalling crapware into part of the BIOS reserved for custom drivers.

• So, being an exile effectively means that you have angered the power structures of your home country to such an extent that other countries feel compelled to give you refuge, partly for legal or principled reasons, but also for political expediency. The current most famous exile in the world is, of course, Edward Snowden, stranded by chance in Russia en route to political asylum in Ecuador.

• His opinion changed drastically over the summer of ’97 after we had blown the whistle on a series of crimes committed by the UK’s spy agencies. As a result of our actions — the first reports appeared in the British media on 24 July 1997 — we had fled the country and gone on the run around Europe for a month. At the end of this surreal backpacking holiday I returned to the UK to face arrest, pack up our ransacked home, and try to comfort our traumatised families who had known nothing of our whistleblowing plans.

• Raytheon Co on Monday said a new five-year contract it won from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to help more than 100 civilian agencies manage their computer security could be worth $1 billion, a key win for the company.

• Raytheon said DHS selected it to be the prime contractor and systems integrator for the agency’s Network Security Deployment (NSD) division, and its National Cybersecurity Protection System (NCPS). The contract runs for five years, but some orders could be extended for up to an additional 24 months, it said.

• Lots more in the article. The Intercept also published 28 new top secret NSA and GCHQ documents.

• Before long, billions of digital records about ordinary people’s online activities were being stored every day. Among them were details cataloging visits to porn, social media and news websites, search engines, chat forums, and blogs.

• We’ve written before about how limited the Fourth Amendment is when applied to drivers and their vehicles. A number of court decisions — along with continually-reinforced exceptions — have allowed police to pull over motorists for any reason imaginable. Once they have someone pulled over, it’s just a matter of obtaining consent from the driver or, failing that, coming up with a reasonable approximation of probable cause. (Drug dogs are a favorite.) After that, no warrant is needed to search the vehicle, along with the contents of any container found within it.

• PRESIDENTIAL POTENTIAL CARLY FIORINA has spoken of a time when HP made efforts to appease a data-hungry and terror-aware government with the speedy delivery of some servers.

• Fiorina, HP and the entire technology industry is under scrutiny and inspection concerning links between terrorism, terror tracking and technology. Her candid confession is a big one, and comes to us via The Register and its take on an article by an investigative reporter named Michael Isikoff.

• Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor whose leaked documents opened a worldwide discussion about government surveillance, joined Twitter this morning. So far, he’s amassed more than 400,000 followers, but he follows only one account: @NSAGov.

• Former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden’s revelations rocked the world. According to his detailed reports, the US had launched massive spying programs and was scrutinizing the communications of American citizens in a manner which could only be described as extreme and intense.

• Before Chinese President Xi Jinping visits President Obama, he and Chinese executives have some business in Seattle: pressing U.S. tech companies, hungry for the Chinese market, to comply with the country’s new stringent and suppressive Internet policies.

• The New York Times reported last week that Chinese authorities sent a letter to some U.S. tech firms seeking a promise they would not harm China’s national security.

• The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) recently revealed that an estimated 5.6 million government employees were affected by the hack; and not 1.1 million as previously assumed.

• The head of the National Security Agency on Thursday told Senate lawmakers that preventing his agency from collecting Americans’ information in bulk would make it harder to do its job.

• Under questioning before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Adm. Michael Rogers agreed that ending bulk collection would “significantly reduce [his] operational capabilities.”

• “Right now, bulk collection gives us the ability … to generate insights as to what’s going on,” Rogers told the committee.

• The foundation behind Wikipedia is suing the U.S. government over spying that it says violates core provisions of the Constitution.

• The Wikimedia Foundation joined forces on Tuesday with a slew of human rights groups, The Nation magazine and other organizations in a lawsuit accusing the National Security Agency (NSA) and Justice Department of violating the constitutional protections for freedom of speech and privacy.

• The main pending issues for the European Data Protection Regulation will be discussed on 16th and 17th September during the coming trialogue meeting. The latest proposals from the Council visibly aim at limiting the guarantees provided to the users in favor of private lobbies.

• After the French Constitutional Council censored measures on international surveillance in the Surveillance Law voted last June, the government fires back with a bill that will be discussed at the end of September in the National Assembly. La Quadrature du Net strongly rejects the unacceptable clauses which would launch an “intelligence war” against our European and international partners.

• After the huge success of a packed out hustings the Open Rights Group have two great events in one fantastic evening for our October Manchester Meetup. Please spread the word.

• After yesterday’s announcement by the French government that the bill on International Surveillance will be discussed on a fast track procedure, the bill was adopted this morning at the Defence Committee by the French Lower Chamber in only twenty minutes and without almost any debate. An association of French-American lawyers and attorneys has just legally challenged the National Commission of Control of Security Interceptions (CNCIS, French Surveillance Watchdog) regarding the secret implementing decree of 2008. Could it be that the French government is worried about opening up its surveillance practices?

• 15-year-old ‘Safe Harbour’ agreement between the US and EU should not stop data transfers being suspended, legal counsel says

• The Advocate General of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) published on 23rd September his conclusions in the case “Maximilian Schrems against Data Protection Commissioner”. The Advocate General, Yves Bot, recommends an invalidation of the Safe Harbor agreement which regulates the transfer of personal data of European citizens by online services like Facebook, to the United States. The Advocate General considers that the surveillance carried out by US intelligence services hinders fundamental rights of European citizens. La Quadrature du Net welcomes these clear and protective conclusions, and hopes that the EU Court of Justice will have the courage to follow him in challenging Safe Harbor as demanded by civil society since the first Snowden revelations. Additionally, putting Safe Harbour aside, his analysis of the NSA’s practices should also apply to mass surveillance by European governments, such as France.

• Fiberglass tapping, real-time Internet traffic analysis, encryption cracking, computer hacking: Germany’s foreign intelligence agency Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) is massively expanding its Internet surveillance capabilities. We publish its secret 300 million Euro investment programme „Strategische Initiative Technik“. Members of Parliament and civil society criticise the agency’s new powers and demand an end of the whopping armament programme.

• The undersigned civil and human rights organisations call on French parliamentarians to reject the draft law on surveillance measures for international electronic communications (Proposition de loi relative aux mesures de surveillance des communications électroniques internationales). The bill fails to defend and protect the right to privacy of individuals worldwide.

• Last week was the first time someone from MI5 has given a live public interview.

• Open Rights Group has responded to the announcement in today’s Terrorism Acts report that plans for a Privacy and Civil Liberties Board have been dropped.

• The second category is personalization data, the things Windows—and especially Cortana—knows regarding what your handwriting looks like, what your voice sounds like, which sports teams you follow, and so on. Nothing is changing here. Microsoft says that users are in control, but our own testing suggests that the situation is murkier. Even when set to use the most private settings, there is unexpected communication between Windows 10 and Microsoft. We continue to advocate settings that are both clearer and stricter in their effect.

Civil Rights

• Like other ex-Muslims, she says the importance of being true to herself outweighs the very real loneliness of being disowned and the guilt placed on her.

• “When I came out to my family my auntie told me my brothers and sisters wouldn’t be able to get married because their honour would be tarnished. And it would all be my fault.”

• The fear is constant too. “I used to live in Bradford for a time and I’d be very quiet about it because there are Muslims everywhere. I still have this innate fear, it’s hard to explain. You just want to keep quiet about it. It’s just safe to stay quiet.”

• Prosecutors hate losing — so much so that they’re willing to color outside the legal lines for a chance at a win. Plenty of prosecutorial misbehavior has been uncovered over the years, most of it tied to the withholding of exonerating evidence.

• This summer, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse introduced an amendment to the flawed Cyber Information Sharing Act (CISA) that would make it even worse, by expanding the broken Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). EFF has proposed common sense changes to this federal anti-hacking law, many of which were included in “Aaron’s law,” recently reintroduced. While CISA was delayed by strong grassroots opposition over the summer, it looks likely to move soon—bad amendments and all. That’s why we’re urging people to take action and tell the Senate to vote no on this and any other dangerous CFAA changes.

Intellectual Monopolies

• The media has been publically shaming Martin Shkreli, a Big Pharma (Turing Pharmaceuticals.) CEO who hyped the HIV drug price by 5455% (from $13.50 to $750 per tablet) and is reported to have hyped a cystinura drug by almost 2000%. This is a perfect example of why Piracy, or sharing should not be considered a crime and why our clear policy on the NHS handling drug research is again shown to be a viable option to prevent drug prices from harming patients.

Copyrights

• In yesterday’s decision United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reminded rights owners of the need to assess whether their material is being used legally (in that it is fair use) before dishing out Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown notices. At issue in Lenz v Universal Music is a 29 second video of the plaintiff, Stephanie Lenz’s young children dancing to Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy”. The 2007 clip shows primarily her toddler, hands grasped on a child’s toy stroller, grooving to Prince’s 1984 hit which plays loudly, but not particularly clearly, in the background. Like many a doting parent, Lenz recorded the video to show her friends and family that one of her children was learning how to walk. Lenz uploaded the clip to YouTube which managed to incur 200 hits before Universal issued a DMCA take down notice. Lenz twice appealed the takedown notice with the result that the clip was reposted on YouTube. It now has over 1.4 million views.

• Warner-Chappell Music in the song—Happy Birthday- has been rejected on the technical but legally dispositive ground that the necessary chain of title in the hoary song had not been proven. For this Kat, the really interesting question that emerges from this decision is why there seems to be such a widespread sense of satisfaction in the ultimate result. It is not simply that justice has been served; after all, a lot of copyright decisions have been resolved on the finding that the moving party failed to show good title. Moreover, the general public seldom gets excited by the nitty-gritty of copyright transfers.

• Haribo’s suit against Lindt’s golden chocolate bear has provided the trade mark community with a lot to digest (see IPKat posts here, here and here). The premise is interesting: Haribo sued Lindt based on an alleged infringement of its word mark GOLDBEAR – undoubtedly very well known in Germany – by Lindt’s three-dimensional golden chocolate bear.

• We already wrote about the various filings in the Rightscorp-by-proxy lawsuit against Cox Communications. However, mixed in with all the filings are some interesting tidbits and exhibits. One that caught my eye was an exhibit revealing the “script” that Rightscorp gives its agents to use when people call in after receiving a notice. Cox Communications filed this in showing that the actual plaintiffs (BMG and Round Hill Music) “turned a blind eye” to Rightscorp’s misconduct. The script is quite something, with a few ridiculous statements. The most ridiculous, however, is the following.

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