GNU's novel proposal: A cloud that puts privacy first

At Open World Forum in Paris last week, I had the opportunity to spend time with John Sullivan, executive director of the Free Software Foundation (FSF). John leads a surprisingly large staff promoting software freedom in the United States and globally. We discussed the recent 30th anniversary of the GNU project announcement by FSF founder Richard Stallman, together with the organization's new vision to address the challenges that cloud computing presents to our individual and collective liberties.

Originally envisioned as a complete platform with licensing guaranteeing the liberties of its users, GNU has grown to hundreds of packages over its 30-year life. Even so, the original vision of a finished platform is incomplete, awaiting a release-quality kernel to be created within the project. That kernel -- from the Hurd project within GNU -- is now built out enough for there to be an experimental GNU platform built within the Debian community. Until that is finished, the GNU platform relies on the Linux kernel to deliver a whole operating system.

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Meanwhile, the 30th anniversary has offered the FSF a timely opportunity to turn its sites on the cloud. Going beyond simply promoting free software, the FSF is now committed to achieving an Internet-based computing environment designed to protect the liberties of its users. Particular emphasis is being placed on federated publishing and communication services, along with tools to protect privacy and anonymity.

The FSF organized celebratory hackathons for several projects to advance the GNU platform in these areas. The events embraced both official GNU projects such as GNU MediaGoblin and GNU Social, as well as compatible non-GNU projects Commotion, Tahoe-LAFS, and Tor. The FSF has been critical of much that goes under the cloud computing banner, with Stallman famously deriding the idea as "careless computing." These projects embody a different vision:

• Commotion is described as an open source communication tool that uses mobile phones, computers, and other wireless devices to create decentralized mesh networks. By creating a mesh, there's no single point of failure and no place for the NSA to wiretap.


• MediaGoblin is a free software media publishing platform designed as an alternative to Flickr, YouTube, SoundCloud, and the like. It empowers individuals to run their own service rather than relying on a centralized provider.


• Tahoe-LAFS is a free and open cloud storage system that distributes its data as encrypted, multiredundant fragments across numerous servers. Even if some of the servers fail or are taken over by an attacker, the entire filesystem continues to function correctly, preserving your privacy and security.


• Tor is perhaps the best-known of all the projects involved. It's free software and an open network that helps defend against traffic analysis, a form of network surveillance that threatens personal freedom and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security.

These distributed projects represent a different vision for the cloud, one where there's no place to eavesdrop, where the only person worth subpoenaing is the data owner, and where the liberty of the individual takes priority over the profit of the service provider. Cloud doesn't mean a remote rack of servers under someone else's control; rather, it means a truly distributed service.

As revelations about the out-of-control behaviors of security services at home and abroad continue to emerge, the FSF has offered a timely new vision in the spirit of Stallman's original "free Unix" announcement back in 1983. Happy birthday GNU!

This article, "GNU's novel proposal: A cloud that puts privacy first," was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Read more of the Open Sources blog and follow the latest developments in open source at InfoWorld.com. For the latest business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.

Source: http://podcasts.infoworld.com/d/open-source-software/gnus-novel-proposal-cloud-puts-privacy-first-228599?source=rss_infoworld_top_stories_
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China urges quick U.S. action to address fiscal cliff

BEIJING (Reuters) - China Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao demanded the U.S. government take "concrete steps" to resolve the fiscal cliff issue and prevent a treasury bond default, the latest warning from the biggest holder of such assets two days ahead of the debt ceiling deadline.

Zhu made the comments at a media briefing during an official meeting between the Chinese and British governments on Tuesday.

He also urged the U.S. side to take its due responsibility to uphold stability of international financial markets.

"In the long run, the United States must address the fiscal stalemate, must raise the cap of the debt limit soon as to keep the promise of no default of its Treasury bonds and keep the sound momentum of the U.S. economy and avoid dragging down the world economy," he said.

(Reporting by Aileen Wang and Sui-lee Wee)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/china-urges-quick-u-action-address-fiscal-cliff-093222126--business.html
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Bing searches on Internet Explorer 11 sped up with pre-rendered top result

Microsoft keeps adding features to sweeten the deal for its loyal search and browser users, with the latest addition bringing background-rendered pages to Bing when it's coupled with Internet Explorer 11. Much like how Google does this trick with Chrome, Redmond's browser starts downloading the top search result before you even click it, giving near-instant page loads. What's more, the software giant says this is done in a streamlined way so it doesn't eat up battery life on mobile devices. Shaving seconds off of search times should come as welcome news for ardent (and impatient) fans of Microsoft's browsing suite -- yes, even those on Windows 7.

[Original image credit: Henry McLin/Flickr]

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/10/14/bing-preloads-search-results-on-ie11/?ncid=rss_truncated
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Busan: South Korean VFX Firms Target China

Elisabetta Villa/Getty Images

Tsui Hark

The Asian Film Market, held in conjunction with the Busan International Film Festival, wrapped Thursday with an increased number of participants — and adding to the growth was the presence of an array of South Korean CG/VFX firms angling for collaboration with the booming Chinese film industry.

The Korea Creative Content Agency (KOCCA), a state organization for governing cultural content, invited 10 local firms for a conference dubbed "The Future of Cooperative CG/VFX and S3D Technology Between Korea and China." The event comes in time for the 20th anniversary of diplomatic ties between the two Asian countries.

PHOTOS: 3D Movie Rereleases: The Hits and Misses

Tsui Hark, one of the most prominent filmmakers in Chinese language cinema, said Korean collaboration and technology was crucial to his hit epic Young Detective Dee: Rise of the Sea Dragon, currently on release. "It would not have been possible to create the quality visuals and special effects in ‘Detective Dee 2’ without Korea’s help," the filmmaker said during a keynote speech on Wednesday.

Tsui emphasized the importance of cooperation among Asian industries amid rapid technological advances and fast growing markets.

"Three out of 10 Chinese films are 3D while, the number of theaters dedicated to the genre have multiplied in recent years to about 9,500 across the country, so China has become a huge 3D market," he said. "We don’t know what is going to happen and how things are going to change, but technological problems remain the same in Asia. There needs to be more serious debates on this matter."

Korea’s Dexter Studios was behind the making of Tsui’s film. It is also known for rendering the lead character, a CG gorilla, in the Korea-China co-production Mr. Go that was released this summer.

STORY: Busan: South Korea Taps China Film Boom

"There are a lot of VFX companies around the world, but not that many that can make creature films like we do. Mr. Go for example featured 900 cuts compared to most creature movies that show about 150,' said Hailey Soyoung Park, planning & marketing producer of Dexter. "This is our first time taking part in the market and it’s a great chance to promote the company because international collaborations with China and other countries are very important to us."

Red Rover, which will soon see the release of animation feature The Nut Job via the Weinstein Company in English-speaking territories, also feels the growing interdependence between the two countries. "The Chinese market is growing bigger and we see an increasing number of Korean companies being sought out for projects for it," said the company’s marketing manager Hyunjee Heather Lim.

Meanwhile, the Beijing Film Commission took part in the market for the first time and plans to return with a larger pavilion next year.

"It’s our first time coming here to promote collaborations and discussions between filmmakers. But there aren’t enough Chinese booths here to reflect the vast amount of joint ventures that are taking place between China and Korea, both at a corporate and governmental level," said Zhang Hongyuan, manager of the commission’s project department.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/thr/film/~3/ofrdSMdJpOQ/story01.htm
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Brazil investigates Google over antitrust charges

By Brad Haynes

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Brazil is investigating Google Inc for anticompetitive practices alleged by Microsoft Corp and Brazilian rivals, adding to government pressure in one of Google's fastest-growing major markets.

Brazilian antitrust watchdog Cade said on Friday it is looking into accusations that Google has unfairly used rivals' content, discouraged their advertisers and favored its own product listings in search results.

A Google spokeswoman in Sao Paulo said in an email that the company would cooperate with Brazilian regulators.

Microsoft filed a complaint charging Google with obstructing advertising campaigns across multiple search engines to give an unfair advantage to its highly profitable AdWords service, according to a Cade statement. AdWords is Google's main source of advertising dollars, which make up 95 percent of revenue.

Brazilian comparison shopping sites Buscapé and Bondfardo also accused Google of reproducing product reviews from their users, a practice known as "scraping," without allowing the competitors to do the same with its website Google Shopping.

Cade is also looking into complaints from Buscapé and Bondfardo that Google gives unfair prominence to Google Shopping on its general Web search, making it the only price-comparison tool that appears with photos, prices and evaluations.

The regulatory pressure comes as Brazilian authorities take a closer look at major U.S. Internet companies such as Google and Facebook Inc after revelations the United States spied on digital communications by President Dilma Rousseff and state-run oil company Petrobras.

Rousseff has pushed new legislation that would force major Internet companies to store locally gathered data inside Brazil, requiring the construction of costly new data centers.

Communications Minister Paulo Bernardo recently suggested tech companies were not paying enough taxes.

Google is moving closer to settling a three-year antitrust dispute with the European Union on grounds similar to those raised by the Brazilian investigation.

Last year, Google won an initial ruling from a Sao Paulo court in a lawsuit filed by Buscapé and Bondfardo covering the same practices they outlined in their Cade complaint.

The court found that Google did not have a monopoly over Brazil's search engine market and was not a direct competitor with comparison shopping websites. Buscapé appealed the ruling.

Google is facing increased scrutiny at a time when Brazilian regulators are working to ramp up the enforcement of competition laws following years of complaints from consumer advocates of lax oversight and antitrust abuses by companies.

(Additional reporting by Leonardo Goy in Brasilia.; Editing by Matthew Lewis and Andre Grenon)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/brazil-investigates-google-over-antitrust-charges-153056799--finance.html
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Windows Azure Outage

The following line of code will ignore the expired SSL certificate exceptions. ?Put this line of code at the beginning of your WebRole.OnStart method and also in your Global.asax's Begin_Application method:

// Temporarily not care about Microsoft's ridiculous SSL certificate expiration.  ServicePointManager.ServerCertificateValidationCallback = (a, b, c, d) => true;

You can continue to use SSL endpoints to Azure Storage, including the Diagnostics configuration. ?The main problem you will face is deploying this code to the cloud because Service Management is down. ?If you were fortunate enough to setup Remote Desktop, you can remote into each instance and copy/paste deploy the solution.

To do this, you must create a cspkg by right-clicking on the Azure Project and selecting 'Package'. ?This will build a cspkg file for you and open the folder in Windows Explorer. ?Open the cspkg with 7Zip (or another zip utility) and then open the .cssx file inside this archive (should be the largest file). ?Navigate to the siteroot folder and copy/paste its contents into E:\sitesroot on your web role instances. ?Apply an application pool recycle in IIS and you should be up and running with the new line of code you added. ?I would *not* suggest an iisreset as this requires another service (World Wide Web Publishing Service) to be started before your application will work.

An even lengthier version of the delegate can be used to allow a one day grace period on expiration dates:

ServicePointManager.ServerCertificateValidationCallback = (sender, cert, chain, sslPolicyError) => {     if (sslPolicyError == SslPolicyErrors.None)     {         return true;     }     else if (sslPolicyError == SslPolicyErrors.RemoteCertificateChainErrors)     {         var expDate = DateTime.Parse(cert.GetExpirationDateString());         if (expDate < DateTime.Now && expDate.AddDays(1) >= DateTime.Now)         {             // TODO: Warn about SSL certificate expiration.             return true;         }     }      return false; };

Please note: This delegate applies to *all* SSL certificate validations. ?Use with care.

Source: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/windowsazuredata/thread/751c85c5-b3b5-43ba-9d5b-770472ad79e1

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Gunmen attack Indonesian military chopper in Papua

JAYAPURA, Indonesia (AP) ? Unidentified gunmen shot at an Indonesian military helicopter in the restive province of Papua on Friday as the crew was trying to evacuate the bodies of eight soldiers killed in attacks the day before.

Three crew members were wounded in Friday's attack on the Super Puma helicopter, which was forced to abort its mission and rush the injured to a hospital, said Lt. Col. Jansen Simanjuntak, an army spokesman.

Eight soldiers were killed in two separate attacks in the area on Thursday. The area is a stronghold of separatists who have battled Indonesian rule in the impoverished region for more than 40 years.

In the deadliest attack Thursday, about 20 assailants armed with guns and machetes attacked a group of soldiers walking to Ilaga Airport in Puncak district to collect communication equipment, killing seven, Simanjuntak said.

Two civilians also were shot in the attack, but their fate was unclear, he said. He said earlier that the two had been killed.

About an hour before that attack, gunmen stormed an army post in Tinggi Nambut, a village in neighboring Puncak Jaya district, and fatally shot one soldier and injured another before fleeing into the jungle, Simanjuntak said.

Indonesian military spokesman Rear Adm. Iskandar Sitompul said the same group was responsible for both attacks.

"They are believed to be old players who always try to disturb the situation there," Sitompul said in Jakarta, the capital.

Simanjuntak identified the assailants as members of a local separatist group led by Goliat Tabuni.

Senior Security Minister Djoko Suyanto said the incidents were "very irresponsible acts by the armed groups in Papua," adding that "the government very strongly condemns such brutal incidents." He said the perpetrators would be captured and prosecuted.

The former Dutch colony of Papua in the western part of New Guinea was incorporated into Indonesia in 1969 following a U.N.-sponsored ballot of tribal leaders that has since been dismissed as a sham. A small, poorly armed separatist organization known as the Free Papua Movement has battled for independence since then.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/gunmen-attack-indonesian-military-chopper-papua-042304976.html

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