TrueSatan - Slashdot User

Submission + - Gnome Founder Miguel de Icaza Moves To Mac (tirania.org) 1

Submitted by TrueSatan on Tuesday March 05, 2013 @06:21PM

TrueSatan writes: Miguel de Icaza, via his blog, has declared his intention to move to the Apple Mac platform stating his main reasons as being, "To me, the fragmentation of Linux as a platform, the multiple incompatible distros, and the incompatibilities across versions of the same distro were my Three Mile Island/Chernobyl."

Reaction to his announcement includes http://blogs.kde.org/2013/03/05/gnome-founder-leaves from Jonathan Riddell of Blue Systems/Kubuntu.

Given Miguel de Icaza past asociation with Microsoft (CodePlex Foundation) and the Free Software Foundation's founder Richard Stallman's description of de Icaza as a "traitor to the free software community" http://www.osnews.com/story/22225/RMS_De_Icaza_Traitor_to_Free_Software_Community this might be seen as more of a blow to Microsoft than to GNU/Linux.

Submission + - KDE Software Compilation 4.10.1 Released (kde.org)

Submitted by

jrepin

on Tuesday March 05, 2013 @11:28AM

jrepin writes: "Today KDE released updates for its Workspaces, Applications and Development Platform. These updates are the first in a series of monthly stabilization updates to the 4.10 series. over 100 recorded bugfixes include improvements to the Personal Information Management suite Kontact, the Window Manager KWin, and others. KDE's Development Platform has received a number of updates that affect multiple applications."

Submission + - Tesla Motors Loses Appeal Against BBC Top Gear (bailii.org)

Submitted by TrueSatan on Tuesday March 05, 2013 @09:47AM

TrueSatan writes: In a highly detailed decision the UK Court of Appeal has rejected Tesla's appeal against an eartlier ruling by a lower court that, too, rejected Tesla's case. Reading through the decision it is clear that the judge saw Tesla's case as lacking sufficient detail and specific instances of proof to support each claim. The judge stated that that Tesla's chances of a successful appeal, should the case have gone to trial, were insufficiently high to justify holding a trial. He stated that Tesla's case had no real chance of success and in many notes picked appart Tesla's legal team's arguments...that said he did not say that Top Gear were right or justified in portraying Tesla's vehicle in the way they did merely that there wasn't a legal case for an appeal.
One of the key flaws in Tesla's case, according to the judicial decision, was Tesla's inability to show that actual pecuniary harm, with detailed financial figues, had occured.

Submission + - Canonical Announces Mir: A New Display Server Not On X11 Or Wayland (phoronix.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 04, 2013 @02:14PM

An anonymous reader writes: On the Ubuntu Wiki is now the Mir specification, which is a next-generation display server not based on X11/X.Org or Wayland. Canonical is rolling their own display server for future releases of Ubuntu for form factors from mobile phones to the desktop. Mir is still in development but is said to support Android graphics drivers, open-source Linux graphics drivers, and they're pressuring hardware vendors with commercial closed-source drivers to support it too. They also said X11 apps will be compatible along with GTK3 and Qt/QML programs. Canonical isn't using X11 or Wayland with their future Unity desktop as they see many shortcomings from these existing and commonly used components. Will Mir work as Ubuntu's own display server?

Submission + - Canada Launches ACTA Bill (michaelgeist.ca)

Submitted by TrueSatan on Friday March 01, 2013 @05:09PM

TrueSatan writes: In an utterly craven move the Canadian government has launched a bill http://www.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?Language=E&Mode=1&DocId=6013262 to bring Canada into full compliance with the discredited, US led, ACTA agreement...an agreement to which most of the world does not agree. To further pressure the acceptance of this awful bill the US, on the same day, released their Trade Policy and Agenda Annual Report http://www.ustr.gov/sites/default/files/AnnualReport Final2013.pdf that calls on Canada to comply with ACTA obligations. For ACTA to take effect it would require six signatures from the major economic blocks and it appears to have no remaining possibility of getting them yet the US, and now Canada, continue to push it forward.

The Canadian bill features claims based on spurious health and safety concerns that have been thoroughly debunked by a US report http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-423 , Despite these claims being so dubious they remain a cornerstone of the Canadian bill. Similarly the claimed losses due to counterfeiting ($30 Billion US) stated in the bill have also been debunked and were plucked from thin air as 3-4% of US/Canadian trade http://cacn.ca/PDF/4-JMyers-CME.pdf without any substantiation of why the figure should be applied.

The Canadian bill seeks to give border guards an unprecedented level of control without the possibility of judicial oversight and with any contentious decisions being at the whim of copyright holders discretion...guilty until proven innocent and with no chance to prove oneself innocent.

Despite a lack of evidence to suggest that Canada is a major source of counterfeit product the bill puts at risk fully legal parralel import of generic items..pharmaceuticals for instance see https://sites.google.com/site/iipenforcement/acta-section-analysis.

The bill would also change copyright infringement from a civil dispute to a breach of criminal law.

Pity Canada if this bill is enacted!

Comment "Refining" Openness and Accessibility = Reducing (Score 2, Insightful) 49

by TrueSatan on Wednesday February 27, 2013 @02:09PM (#43026537) Attached to: Ubuntu Developer Summits Shifting Online, Increasing Frequency

Forcing anyone who might wish to participate to join Google+ Hangouts also forces them to allow Google access to their real names and personal data thus Canonical yet again sjows that it has no, real, understanding, nor interest, in openness or accessibility and still less personal freedom and privacy. As they have with their Amazon affiliate contract they care more about commercial interests than the rights of their users or developers. Like the EFF and the FSF I never include Ubuntu GNU/Linux in any recommendation list...actually I steer people away from it.

Submission + - DOJ Had To Put Aaron Swartz In Jail To Save Face Over Arrest (huffingtonpost.com) 2

Submitted by TrueSatan on Monday February 25, 2013 @04:13PM

TrueSatan writes: According to Huffington Post. "Some congressional staffers left the briefing with the impression that prosecutors believed they needed to convict Swartz of a felony that would put him in jail for a short sentence in order to justify bringing the charges in the first place, according to two aides with knowledge of the briefing."
It was also conceeded that the prosecution was fuelled by Swartz Open Access Manifesto http://archive.org/stream/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto/Goamjuly2008_djvu.txt in which he stated, "We need to take information, wherever it is stored, make our copies and share them with the world. We need to take stuff that's out of copyright and add it to the archive. We need to buy secret databases and put them on the Web. We need to download scientific journals and upload them to file sharing networks. We need to fight for Guerilla Open Access."

Comment Re:This is getting (has gotten?) out of control (Score 1) 3

by TrueSatan on Saturday February 23, 2013 @04:19PM (#42991097) Attached to: Nikon Agrees to Pay Microsoft "Android Tax" on Smart Cameras

Simple...software should return to being regarded as a derivative of mathematics and thus non-patentable. Copyright could still be granted but that is a discussion for another time.

Submission + - Andrew Auernheimer Case Horrifyingly Similar To Aaron Swartz Case (techcrunch.com)

Submitted by TrueSatan on Tuesday January 22, 2013 @02:02AM

TrueSatan writes: Thankfully Auernheimer doesn't appear suicidal, no thanks to US prosecutors, yet he has been under attack for an his act of altering an API URL that revealed a set of user data and posting details of same.

"In June of 2010 there was an AT&T webserver on the open Internet. There was an API on this server, a URL with a number at the end. If you incremented this number, you saw the next iPad 3G user email address. I thought it was egregiously negligent for AT&T to be publishing a complete target list of iPad 3G owners, and I took a sample of the API output to a journalist at Gawker."

http://gawker.com/5559346/apples-worst-security-breach-114000-ipad-owners-exposed

Auernheimer has been under investigation from that point onwards with restrictions on his freedom and ability to earn a living that are grossly disproportionate to any percieved crime. This is just as much a case of legislative over reach and the unfettered power of prosecutors as was Swartz's case.

Submission + - Tool could reveal Mega passwords (scmagazine.com.au)

Submitted by mask.of.sanity on Tuesday January 22, 2013 @01:59AM

mask.of.sanity writes: A crypto boffin has found a cryptographic flaw in the Mega cloud service that could reveal user passwords.

He is designing a tool dubbed MegaCracker that he says will crack hashes embedded into email confirmation links sent as part of the Mega registration process.

Submission + - Canonical Intentionally Ignores Fix For Unity Shopping Lens Bug (benjaminkerensa.com)

Submitted by TrueSatan on Thursday January 10, 2013 @08:59PM

TrueSatan writes: It seems that there is nothing accidental about the issues the EFF (Electronic Frontiers Foundation) and other have addressed regarding the Unity Shopping Lens present in recent releases of Ubuntu. Despite a gifted developer providing them with a fix for these issues they have continued to both ignore the fix and let the issues continue in place. The relevant bug listing is here https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity-lens-shopping/+bug/1073114 Canonical are ignoring users protests and those of respected, user privacy protecting, bodies.

Submission + - Hard To Push The US Agenda When The World Listens To Reason (techdirt.com)

Submitted by TrueSatan on Wednesday December 19, 2012 @01:31PM

TrueSatan writes: Following the fall of SOPA, which had intended to massively increase the number and power of IP Attaches http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111109/00025716689/not-to-be-overlooked-sopa-massive-expansion-copyright-maximalist-diplomatic-corp.shtml , and Lamar Smith's subsequent attempt to sneak the same plans through in another bill http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120709/12574819634/lamar-smith-looking-to-sneak-through-sopa-bits-pieces-starting-with-expanding-hollywoods-global-police-force.shtml existing IP Attaches have come together in an event hosted by the US Chamber of Commerce to whine about awful people and organisations daring to voice concerns about IP legislation http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090116/0403073433.shtml here are some examples http://www.ip-watch.org/2012/12/16/us-ip-officials-blast-ngos-in-geneva-trying-to-change-views-on-ip/
Their main targets are NGO's (Non Governmental Organisations) particularly with NGO's ridiculous concerns about the rights and well-being of the public and with the effect that strengthened IP laws have on increasing the costs of goods and services in poor countries.

Submission + - Developer of Facebook browser extension banned from Facebook (fbpurity.com)

Submitted by

earlzdotnet

on Wednesday December 19, 2012 @11:35AM

earlzdotnet writes: "The developer of F.B. Purity (Fluff Busting Purity) has been banned from Facebook. F.B. Purity is a set of browser extensions for Firefox, Chrome, and others to make Facebook more accessible and remove some of it's most annoying features.

Facebook complains that they are violating their terms of service by interfering with Facebook's user-interface and not using the official API. They also claim to own the "FB" set of letters and say F.B. Purity must remove those letters from it's domain and product. And finally, Facebook also complains that his website is spam and therefore direct links to it is blocked from Facebook.

The developer is not yet banned from Facebook, but has been told that his personal account will be banned at anytime, along with the Facebook page set up for F.B. Purity. This isn't the first time F.B. Purity has caught the eye of Facebook's legal team, but it is the first time they've decided to outright ban the developer. However, it's impossible to ban the browser extension because it is... well, an extension to your browser. Facebook probably can't even detect one is using it."

Submission + - UK Pirate Party forced to give up legal fight (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Grumbleduke on Wednesday December 19, 2012 @11:21AM

Grumbleduke writes: The UK Pirate Party has been forced to shut down its proxy of The Pirate Bay. The Party had been running the proxy since April, initially to support the Dutch Party's efforts, then as a means of combating censorship after the BPI obtained uncontested court orders against the UK's main ISPs to block the site across the UK.

In a statement released through their lawyers, the Party cited the impossibly-high costs of legal action for their decision, but vowed to keep fighting for digital rights however they can.

Submission + - 2008 Sichuan Earthquake Likely Man-Made (chinadigitaltimes.net)

Submitted by TrueSatan on Thursday December 13, 2012 @12:26PM

TrueSatan writes: A new study of the data from the 2008 Sichuan earthquake http://probeinternational.org/library/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Fan-Xiao12-12.pdf published by Probe International and based on a detailed analysis of 60 other studies concludes that the earthquake was man-made contradicting denials of same made by the Chinese government.

The study redefines the significance of dam building on seismic stresses and, thus, earthquakes and calls into question other projects in China and worldwide.

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