Linux Advocate Dietrich Schmitz shows how the general public can take action to truly protect their privacy using GnuPG with Evolution email. Read the details.
Linux Advocate Dietrich Schmitz officially endorses what he deems is a truly secure, easy to use PGP email encryption program. Read the details.
Linux Advocate Dietrich Schmitz reminds CIOs that XP Desktops destined for MS end of life support can be reprovisioned with FOSS Linux to run like brand new. Read how.
Linux Advocate shares news that the U.S. Treasury will treat Bitcoin as a Commodity 'Investment'. Read the details.
Linux Advocate Dietrich Schmitz puts out a public service privacy warning. Google Drive gets a failing grade on protecting your privacy.
Email needs an overhaul. Privacy must be integrated.
Cookie Cutter Distros Don't Cut It
The 'Linux Inside' Stigma - It's real and it's a problem.
Linux Advocate Dietrich Schmitz reminds readers of a long ago failed petition by Mathematician Prof. Donald Knuth for stopping issuance of Software Patents.
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| Currier and Ives Winter (Image credit: familychristmasonline.com) |
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| Free Mozilla Firefox Open Source Web Browser |
Transparency, as used in science, engineering, business, the humanities and in a social context more generally, implies openness, communication, and accountability. Transparency is operating in such a way that it is easy for others to see what actions are performed. It has been defined simply as "the perceived quality of intentionally shared information from a sender". For example, a cashier making change after a point of sale transaction by offering a record of the items purchased (e.g., a receipt) as well as counting out the customer's change on the counter demonstrates transparency.
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| Smartwatches (Image credit: theregister.co.uk) |
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| Google Chrome web browser security warning message |
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| Kim Schmitz aka Kim DotCom |
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| Kim DotCom Twitters a message to let the public know about his just published whitepaper |
The criminal prosecution of Megaupload and Kim Dotcom is purportedly the “largest copyright case in history,” involving tens of millions of users around the world, and yet it is founded on highly dubious legal principles and apparently propelled by the White House’s desire to mollify the motion picture industry in exchange for campaign contributions and political support.
The U.S. government’s attack on the popular cloud storage service Megaupload and the dramatized arrest of Kim Dotcom, the company’s principal founder – together with the seizure of all their worldwide assets – represents one of the clearest examples of prosecutorial overreach in recent history. One day after the U.S. Congress failed to enact the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), the executive branch of the U.S. government commandeered Megaupload in a coordinated global take-down, and drew battle lines between digital rights advocates, technology innovators and ordinary information consumers on the one side, and Hollywood and the rest of the Copyright Lobby on the other.
Megaupload operated for seven years as a successful cloud storage business that enabled tens of millions of users around the world to upload and download content of the users’ own choosing and initiative. The spectrum of content ran from (to name just a few) family photos, artistic designs, business archives, academic ourse work, legitimately purchased files, videos and music, and – as with any other cloud storage service – some potentially infringing material. Despite Megaupload’s lawful uses, the U.S. government has charged the company and its executives under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, and has branded the company, its personnel and its tens of millions of users a “criminal enterprise” dedicated solely to infringing U.S. copyright laws.
The U.S. government’s case against Megaupload is grounded in a theory of criminal secondarycopyright infringement. In other words, the prosecution seeks to hold Megaupload and its executives criminally responsible for alleged infringement by the company’s third-party cloud storage users. The problem with the theory, however, is that secondary copyright infringement is not – nor has it ever been – a crime in the United States. The federal courts lack any power to criminalize secondary copyright infringement; the U.S. Congress alone has such authority, and it has not done so.
As such, the Megaupload prosecution is not only baseless, it is unprecedented. Although the U.S. government has previously shut down foreign websites engaged in direct infringement, such as the sale or distribution of infringing material, never before has it brought criminal charges against a cloud file storage service because of the conduct of its users. Thus, the Megaupload case is the first time the government has taken down a foreign website – destroying the company and seizing all of the assets of its owners (and the data of its users), without so much as a hearing – based on a crime that does not exist.
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| cdoor.c - packet coded backdoor (credit: phenolit.de) |
"Although Linux variants from the Turla framework were known to exist, we haven't seen any in the wild yet."Paleeze. This sensational reporting has got to stop.
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| Final Results of Linux Distro Survey 2014 |
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