The Huffington Post Bribe Factory

After a six-month investigation across two continents, Fairfax Media and The Huffington Post can reveal that billions of dollars of government contracts were awarded as the direct result of bribes paid on behalf of firms including British icon Rolls-Royce, US giant Halliburton, Australia’s Leighton Holdings and Korean heavyweights Samsung and Hyundai.

The investigation centres on a Monaco company called Unaoil, run by the jet-setting Ahsani clan. Following a coded ad in a French newspaper, a series of clandestine meetings and midnight phone calls led to our reporters obtaining hundreds of thousands of the Ahsanis’ leaked emails and documents.

Source: The Bribe Factory: The company that corrupted the global oil industry

And leaders, politicians, sports stars, conmen, criminals hiding their illegally gained money offshore via the Mossack Fonseca law firm. All visible through a huge trove of information taken from a hacked email server.

panama papers

What a world we live in, what a great thing leakers and investigative journalists are.

Windows may remove programs during an update for compatibility reasons. If a program is known to cause crashes, bugs, or otherwise conflict with Windows, Windows may remove it to keep your system stable. If this happens, the “All of your files are exactly where you left them” screen will appear like normal–this screen always appears during major updates–but Windows will actually have removed some of your program files.

It looks like this feature is designed to help protect the average Windows user, who might have outdated programs installed. Windows can clean them up and make sure they don’t cause problems. However, Windows doesn’t provide any notice that it’s removed a program–the program will just appear to vanish from your system.

When Windows 10’s first big update arrived, many people on Reddit noticed a variety of programs were being silently removed–most of which were hardware-related utilities. People have reported that it removed the popular Speccy, CPU-Z, HWMonitor, and CCleaner programs from many people’s systems. Many people claim it removed hardware drivers like Intel Rapid Storage Technology and AMD Catalyst Control Center, too. In some cases, people even reported that it removed PDF viewers and antivirus programs (perhaps outdated ones). Confusingly, it seems like the Windows update removed these programs from some computers but not others. Reports are not completely consistent.

Source: Windows 10 May Delete Your Programs Without Asking

You an get them back, apparently, but wow! Balls! I don’t want my OS deleting stuff from my PC!

Many users have confirmed in the comment section of a popular reddit post that “Windows 7 computers are being reported as automatically starting the Windows 10 upgrade without permission.” It’s no secret that Microsoft wants users to upgrade to their new OS. Earlier in the year, Windows 10 was set as a ‘recommended update’ so when you install new security or bug patches, the new OS is selected by default as well.

Source: Windows 10 Upgrade Reportedly Starting Automatically On Windows 7 PCs – Slashdot

Bloody hell, Microsoft, how do you think it’s OK to do this to people’s computers?!

The new FCC rules are meant to limit interference and target third-party firmware because it allows users to modify their radio frequency parameters. While the FCC requirements don’t actually block third-party firmware, it’s much easier for a router manufacturer to comply with the ruling by blocking out custom firmware like OpenWRT or Tomato altogether than it is to test that firmware for compliance.

http://lifehacker.com/tp-link-blocks-open-source-router-firmware-in-complianc-1764335555

This is one of the major learning points for OSS – compliance is incredibly important for widespread adoption, even if it is boring to implement, like documentation

LastPass is a popular password manager used by millions over years. E*Trade is… uhm… patent trolls, I guess? Some finance company with an * in the logo. LastPass uses the logo as a recognition point in the browser toolbar and input boxes, so you can easily choose which account to fill in. The LastPass * was red, E*Trade is purple and green. So LastPass now has 3 dots (…) as the logo. Much more hard to see and use. Goes to show how crazy trademark law is. Fuck you E*Trade shitheads, for making my daily life just a little bit more difficult.

Source: LastPass Forums • View topic – New Logo tomorrow – so what?

Windows 10’s new Spotlight feature usually shows you neat photographs and fun facts when you first start your computer. Now, it’s started showing ads. Here’s how to turn it off.

Source: Windows 10 Is Showing Ads On Your Lockscreen, Here’s How to Turn Them Off

So not only is Windows invading your privacy with windows 10, but is progressively flaunting your non-ownership of the platform.

Now you can only be a ‘supporter’ with no voting rights

Source: Linux Foundation quietly scraps individual memberships

In an open source project this is a massive sellout, giving corporate sponsors all of the power over who runs the board

A source provided The Intercept with a secret, internal catalogue of cell-phone surveillance devices used by the military and intelligence agencies.

Source: The Secret Surveillance Catalogue

The large pop-up screen, which first appeared over the weekend, gives users the option of upgrading straight away or … that evening. Users can still opt out by clicking on the red ‘X’ in the top right corner of the window, but less savvy computer users (part of Redmond’s core market segments) might not figure that out.

Source: Microsoft steps up Windows 10 nagging

Wow, guys, we don’t want your massive privacy invasion called Windows 10!

Philips draait het besluit om zijn Philips Hue systeem niet langer open te stellen voor andere lampenleveranciers terug. Het bedrijf werkt aan nieuwe firmware, waarmee de veranderingen ongedaan worden gemaakt.

Source: Philips stelt zijn Hue systeem alsnog open voor derden – Emerce

Many complaints caused a turn around.

Internet provider Cox Communications is responsible for the copyright infringements of its subscribers, a Virginia federal jury has ruled. The ISP is guilty of willful contributory copyright infringement and must pay music publisher BMG $25 million in damages.

cox-logoToday marks the end of a crucial case that will define how U.S. Internet providers deal with online piracy in the future.

Following a two-week trial a Virginia federal jury reached a verdict earlier today (pdf), ruling that Cox is guilty of willful contributory copyright infringement.

The case was initiated by BMG Rights Management, which held the ISP responsible for tens of thousands of copyright infringements that were committed by its subscribers.

During the trial hearings BMG revealed that the tracking company Rightscorp downloaded more than 150,000 copies of their copyrighted works directly from Cox subscribers.

It also became apparent that Cox had received numerous copyright infringement warnings from Rightscorp which it willingly decided not to act on.

The case was restricted to 1,397 copyrighted works and a six-person jury awarded #25 million in damages. The award is lower than the statutory maximum, which would have been over $200 million.

Source: Cox Is Liable for Pirating Subscribers, Ordered to pay $25 million – TorrentFreak

Apart from the sum, which is amazing, the way the information was collected (downloading directly from subscribers) is in itself a form of piracy and therefore this evidence, being illegal, must be inadmissable?