Meeting notes, Thursday 2014-06-19

Main Presentation

Andrew Spiers: Datawrapper

• Create great looking graphs for your website.

• Main website (largely in German)
• GitHub project page
• English installation documentation
• License
• how it works
  • generated using a hosted PHP/MySQL app which you can host yourself
• how to use it
  • deploys as a stand-alone JavaScript graph that can be added to any page
• benefits
  • interactive
  • requires citation by default
  • looks great!

Gnews links

Software Releases

• Firefox 30.0
  • New Firefox Sync (incompatible with the old sync)
• Google trying out End-to-End Email Encryption http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com.au/2014/06/making-end-to-end-encryption-easier-to.html
  • Can't import keyrings larger than around 128Kb. Import keys individually with something like:
    • for i in $(gpg --list-keys '@mycompany.com' | grep '^pub' | sed 's/^.*\/\([^\ ]*\).*/\1/') ; do gpg --armor --export-options no-export-attributes --export ${i} > ${i}.pub ; done
  • No MIME support.
  • No option to encrypt to self by default.
  • The build I compiled and used for testing (master, ed4a8aa0) can be downloaded here: https://systemsaviour.com/downloads/misc/chromium-extensions/end-to-end/20140619/
• DuckDuckGo redesign
  • Big new release, now includes Images and Videos search
  • Apple to support DuckDuckGo as a search provider in iOS.
• Docker 1.0 - lightweight GNU/Linux containers (http://blog.docker.com/2014/06/its-here-docker-1-0/)
• OpenRA 20140608 - now rips CDs under GNU/Linux correctly, performance improvements, gameplay tweaks (http://www.openra.net/)
• Mesa 10.2 - supports some new OpenGL 4 extensions, software rasterizer supports OpenGL 3.3 (http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTcwMDc)
• id Software's original 'Softdisk' games released under the GPL-2 (https://github.com/FlatRockSoft/)
  • Code only. Requires original game assets.
• OpenXcom 1.0 - a X-COM: UFO Defense engine (code only) reimplementation released under GPL-3 (http://openxcom.org/2014/06/openxcom-1-0/)
• Watch Dogs for PC released, doesn't work for many people due to DRM and failing servers (http://kotaku.com/some-people-cant-play-watch-dogs-on-pc-right-now-1582176863)
• Debian 6 LTS (https://www.debian.org/News/2014/20140616)
• MATE now fully in Debian unstable (https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2014/06/msg00041.html)

Campaigns

• Email Self-Defense https://emailselfdefense.fsf.org/
• Reset the Net https://www.resetthenet.org/ (and Privacy Pack http://pack.resetthenet.org/?)

Other

• Where is RedPhone on F-Droid? "We don't distribute our apps on f-droid because we feel it's insecure" https://github.com/WhisperSystems/RedPhone/issues/143
• TrueCrypt
  • TrueCrypt Website Says To Switch To BitLocker (http://it.slashdot.org/story/14/05/28/2126249/truecrypt-website-says-to-switch-to-bitlocker)
  • The Sudden Policy Change In Truecrypt Explained (http://yro.slashdot.org/story/14/06/01/1922248/the-sudden-policy-change-in-truecrypt-explained)
  • A TrueCrypt secret warning identified (http://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=14/06/17/0511216)
  • AWS continues to use it exclusively anyway. (http://www.infoworld.com/d/cloud-computing/amazon-aws-continues-use-truecrypt-despite-projects-demise-244151)
• EFF/FSF's Tor Challenge https://www.eff.org/torchallenge
• Google and Facebook Can Be Legally Intercepted by GCHQ (http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27887639, http://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=14/06/17/1740215)
  • Intercepted, but data collected in this way "cannot be read, looked at or listened to" except in strictly limited circumstances.
• NSA: Our systems are so complex we can’t stop them from deleting data wanted for lawsuit (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/06/09/nsa-our-systems-are-so-complex-we-cant-stop-them-from-deleting-data-wanted-for-lawsuit/)
• Chinese gov’t(?) reveals Microsoft’s secret list of Android-killer patents (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/06/chinese-govt-reveals-microsofts-secret-list-of-android-killer-patents/)
• Netflix ditches Silverlight for HTML5 on Macs - uses EME in Safari on OS X Yosemite instead (http://techblog.netflix.com/2014/06/html5-video-in-safari-on-os-x-yosemite.html)\
• WikiLeaks: NSA Recording All Telephone Calls In Afghanistan (http://news.slashdot.org/story/14/05/23/1156258/wikileaks-nsa-recording-all-telephone-calls-in-afghanistan)
• Another unexpected reason to value your privacy: Proprietary devices that are always watching and listening - XBox One Ad Turns on Consoles (http://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=14/06/13/2347254)
• Eben Moglen: Privacy under attack: the NSA files revealed new threats to democracy (http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/27/-sp-privacy-under-attack-nsa-files-revealed-new-threats-democracy)