Author: Nick Farrell

VMWare sued for GPL violations

Posted on March 6, 2015 by - News

VMWare has beenrms-meets-open-sauce-detail (1) sued in Hamburg for failing to comply with Open Source rules.

The Software Freedom Conservancy said that Christoph Hellwig’s lawsuit against VMware has started in the district court of Hamburg.

In a statement the Conservancy said that it was a regretful but necessary next step in both Hellwig and Conservancy’s ongoing effort to convince VMware to comply properly with the terms of the GPLv2.

For those who came in late, GPLv2 is the licence of Linux and many other Open Source and Free Software included in VMware’s ESXi products.

Hellwig is a key Linux kernel developer and one of the earliest members of Conservancy’s GPL Compliance Project for Linux Developers. He has been muttering about VMware’s misuse of GPL-licensed code since 2007.

In 2011, Conservancy discovered that VMware had failed to provide nor offer any source code for the version of BusyBox included in VMware’s ESXi products (as required by BusyBox’s licence, GPLv2).

Hellwig joined Conservancy’s GPL Compliance for Linux Developers in late 2012 and helped provide an analysis of the non-compliant releases of ESXi that VMware provided.

The conservancy said that it became apparent that VMware’s current ESXi products infringed many of Hellwig’s own copyrights, due to VMware’s failure to comply with Linux’s licence, GPLv2.

But VMware’s legal counsel finally informed Conservancy in 2014 that VMware had no intention of ceasing their distribution of proprietary-licensed works derived from Hellwig’s and other kernel developers’ copyrights, despite the terms of GPLv2.

The Conservancy and Hellwig claim that VMware has combined copyrighted Linux code, licensed under GPLv2, with their own proprietary code called “vmkernel” and distributed the entire combined work without providing nor offering complete, corresponding source code for that combined work under terms of the GPLv2.

Hellwig is an extensive copyright holder in the portions of Linux that VMware misappropriated and used together in a single, new work without permission.

EU waters down roaming charges kill off

Posted on March 6, 2015 by - News

european-commissionEuropean regulators have dropped plans to ban roaming charges and have proposed net neutrality rules allowing privileged access in some cases.

It means that carriers will still be allowed to charge more to use mobiles abroad.

Also worrying are net neutrality rules would bar discrimination in internet access, but allow prioritisation of some services.

This is a watering down of laws first floated in 2013, observers said.

Instead of ending data roaming charges as was promised, the European Commission has recommended that operators be allowed to add surcharges to their domestic rates.

The proposals were said to be “transitional” and mindful of “wholesale costs” incurred by the mobile operators.

In other words it is only temporary and there is nothing to worry about. But, according to Ovum analyst Matthew Howett, they would amount to the continuation of data roaming charges until at least 2018, when European lawmakers would reconsider whether or not to ban them.

He told the BBC that the watering down happened because operators had already introduced more reasonable charges.

The proposals also covered net neutrality rules. Originally the EU sought to ensure that internet users could get online however they wanted and view any legal content they wanted, free from discrimination by their service providers.

Now it seems that there is a provision for specialised services “other than internet access services” to be prioritised if they required high quality internet access to function.

It is not clear what these specialised services are. More optimistic typeshope that it is connected cars and other elements of the internet of things.

The European Commission specified, however, that service providers would have to ensure a good standard of internet access for consumers if they did prioritise such services. This could mean that streaming video content could require users to shell out more cash.

Health insurer tells watchdogs where to go

Posted on March 6, 2015 by - News

bad-dogIn the wake of a serious hacking, a US health insurer has resolved a problem with government watchdogs snuffling around a huge data leak by banning them from its networks.

Anthem Healthcare lost more than 80 million patient records raising a slight question about what it does about security.

However when the federal auditor asked to scan the company’s systems, it took the bold step of telling the watchdog to sling its hook.

The  Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) Office of Inspector General, issued a statement saying that Anthem refused to allow the agency to perform “standard vulnerability scans and configuration compliance tests” this summer, as requested by the OIG. Worse: Anthem refused a similar request in 2013. In each case, Anthem cited “internal policies” that forbid outside access to its network as the reason for refusing to allow the vulnerability scans.

In other words, no you can’t look at our security because that would be a breach of security.

In its dealings with other insurers, the watchdog would have a problem, but OPM has the authority to conduct the audits on Anthem because that health insurer provides health plans to federal employees under the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program (FEHBP).

What Anthem appears to be worried about is that the watchdog might find out that its security problems go much deeper than a one off hacking.

An earlier OPM report filed in September 2013 and based on only limited access to Anthem’s network identified a number of concerns, from porous vulnerability scans that failed to include desktop systems to a loose configuration management program. In each case, Anthem (then Wellpoint) responded by arguing that its current processes were adequate.

Church forced to buy thousands of dollars worth of iPhones

Posted on March 5, 2015 by - News

apple-disney-dreams-snow-white-Favim.com-142405A US church is scratching its head after it was charged for thousands dollars of iPhones , that it never bought.

It seems that God works in mysterious ways and is dropping the hint that the old religion is past, and Christians everywhere should be worshipping shiny consumer toys with an Apple on them.

A mysterious person used the Fountain of Life’s name to buy more than a thousand dollars worth of iPhones.

A man first tried to buy iPhones in the church’s name at Verizon, but was sent forth into outer darkness by the Apple staff who suspected he was not telling the truth. However when the man came back Apple staff realised he was a true believer and the buy  went through.

The Fountain of Life’s pastor, Preson Pitchford ,was shocked that someone would use the church’s good name to get the tools of a rival consumer based religion like that.

Wells was in her office at the church on the day of reckoning when she received the bill from AT&T.

The bill charged the church for 17 iPhones, all bought on separate days with different phone numbers.

“That just amazes me that somebody could get away with it not just once, not just twice, but multiple times,” Pitchford said. “We don’t use iPhones here at the church. We don’t even use AT&T.”

The suspect used the church’s address and a fake federal tax ID number. Police are still working to figure out if the phones were bought from a store or online.

Pitchford fears it could happen to another church.

“This guy is polished,” Pitchford said. “He’s done it before, and he will do it again.”

AT&T told church members they won’t have to pay the money, that it will be taken care of by the company’s fraud department.

Nvidia adds a new Agent of Shield

Posted on March 5, 2015 by - News

Agents of SHIELD returnsNvidia might not have had many nibbles for its Shield concept, but today it released a TV console to the range for lots of people to ignore.

In this case it has released an Android-based living room device capable of 4K playback and capture.

During its Game Developers Conference 2015 press event, Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang insisted that the world wanted an Android based console TV.

“First, it’s based on the most popular OS in the world. Second, the richness of the Google Play store, with it huge range of applications,” Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang said. “Third, it syncs with all my other devices. Finally, it has an incredible voice search capability,” he said.

He claimed it was the the “world’s irst Android 4K TV” and it could receive and capture 4K at up to 60 fps video “very soon.” The living room entertainment device also packs Android TV functionality so users can access a library of movies, TV and more.

Nvidia Shield is part of the GPU makers cunning plan to make gear away from its traditional markets.

The Nvidia Shield can run both local, and streamed games via its Nvidia Grid subscription based game streaming service, up to 1080p at 60fps. The gaming-centric device will launch with more than 50 games on the Grid store.

The set-top box and console hybrid is based around a Tegra X1 processor, with a 256-bit Maxwell GPU with 3GB of memory. Its body features a MicroSD slot, a Micro USB 2.0 port, two USB Type-A 3.0 ports, gigabit Ethernet port, and HDMI port.

The device will ship bundled with the Shield Controller for USD$199.

Judges question Apple’s Samsung harm

Posted on March 5, 2015 by - News

Samsung Logo GrillworkApple received a shock in a US Appeals court when judges actaully questioned if it had been really financially harmed by Samsung stealing its ideas.

Apple told a US appeals court that rival Samsung should be barred from selling products that infringe on its smartphone patents, but the judges were skeptical.

Judge Kimberly Moore was skeptical that Apple was being harmed since it already licenses some technology to other companies. “You’ve already licensed these patents up the wazoo!” she said.

For those who don’t speak American, she was saying that it was difficult to claim you were damaged by the patent information being used, when you gave it to lots of other people for a small fee.

In the latest round, Apple is seeking an injunction against sales of some Samsung products it says infringe on its patents for technologies such as slide-to-unlock, auto-correct and quick links that can, for instance, send a telephone number from an email to the phone dialer.

Apple lawyer William Lee said Samsung could quickly design work-arounds for the patents but did not do so. He told the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington that Samsung was harming Apple.

Moore disagreed: “You’ve licensed them to everyone. So why is it irreparable harm if Samsung uses the patents?”

Judge Sharon Prost said she was “having a hard time getting past irreparable harm.”

Lee said other smartphone companies, like Google and Huawei had not licensed the technology.

To make matters worse, Samsung lawyer Kathleen Sullivan said the South Korean company had all but stopped using the patents, so no injunction was needed.

Moore lost his rag a bit and wondered then if Samsung had stopped using the patents, why were they still fighting it. “Why am I wasting my time?”

It is a good question. The so called thermonuclear war started by Steve Jobs when Samsung used his rounded rectangle design failed to do anything other than keep lawyers rich. Now it seems pointless to continue it. But it is a bit on the nose to expect Samsung to quit.

Intel and Huawei snuggle up

Posted on March 5, 2015 by - News

cuddling-dog-catIntel and Huawei Technologies are getting closer even as their rival governments fall out over trade blocks.

According to Huawei, the pair are getting closer and will share technology and adopt Huawei branding behind the bamboo curtain to make Intel products more palatable to local buyers and the Chinese government.

The technology involved focuses on the cloud, with the pair working on a project to create new servers, a data centre, software and cyber security for a global cloud-computing network.

China’s government has been openly pushing for the use of more Chinese and less foreign-made technology, both to grow its own tech sector and as a response to Edward Snowden’s leaks about widespread US cyber surveillance.

Intel and Huawei have collaborated previously, including a server and cloud product team-up in 2012 and an agreement to cooperate on data storage last April.

Although the announcement is mostly Chinese focused it is likely that the Intel side of the deal will result in other products seen worldwide. Intel would take the lead in nations where Huawei is not trusted, and Huawei stepping forward in countries which are worried about US surveillance.

Microsoft tech support scammer had a bad day

Posted on March 5, 2015 by - News

Microsoft campusA tech support scammer managed to present two different types of fail by losing his temper with the person he was trying to rip off.

Tech support normally requires the patience of Job and the art of being a scammer involves convincing another person that you really are who you claim.

However one scammer took things to a new level by threatening to kill a man who twigged what he was doing.

Jakob Dulisse of British Columbia had been called by people pretending to be Microsoft tech support before, so when a scammer called him and tried to ask for access so he could install malware on his computer that would steal banking information, passwords, and PayPal credentials he told him to go forth and multiply.

Apparently the scammer was a little shocked at that and resorted to threats to kill – as you do.
“You do understand we have each and every information, your address, your phone number,” the scammer said in the recorded call. (You can listen to excerpts at the CBC link.) “We have our group in Canada. I will call them, I will provide your information to them, they will come to you, they will kill you.”

But that  was only part  of it when Dulisse asked why the man would try to steal from unsuspecting people that the conversation took what Dulisse calls a “sinister turn.”
“He admitted that he was in India… and then he said, ‘If you come to India, you know what we do to Anglo people?’ I said, ‘No.’

“He said, ‘We cut them up in little pieces and throw them in the river.'”

Dulisse found the threats “chilling, but hard to take seriously.”

What was amusing about the call was while he was making those sorts of threats he was still trying to get Dulisse to give him remote access to his computer.

It was probably better that the scammer find a new occupation, as he is clearly in the wrong career.

Huawei increases 5G patent portfolio

Posted on March 4, 2015 by - News

huawei-liveHuawei is spending a bomb to improve its 5G patent portfolio.

The outfit said that it wants to spend $600 million on 5G wireless research and development from 2013 to 2018.

But speaking to reporters at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona yesterday, Huawei Chief Executive Ken Hu said that 5G research spending was likely to rise, without giving specific figures.

Huawei was Europe’s seventh-largest patent filer in 2014, up from 13th the previous year, according a report published last week by the European Patent Office (EPO). It was granted 493 patents by the European agency in 2014, although they were not all 5G related.

5G is supposed to be the next big thing, promises superfast internet speeds, broader network coverage and peace in our lunchtime.

It is also expected to be the driver to hook up objects to the internet from cars to health monitoring devices or the internet of things. The commercial launch of 5G is expected to begin in 2020.
“We have made quite a large number of technology innovations and breakthroughs,” Hu, deputy chairman and ‘rotating’ chief executive of Huawei, said.

These give Huawei a stronger position in terms of intellectual property, he said.

Hu urged cooperation among telecom operators, equipment makers and other industries to agree on a single set of standards for 5G technology to ensure a global market.

Alibaba gets its own US cloud

Posted on March 4, 2015 by - News

Clouds in Oxford: pic Mike MageeAlibaba is launching a cloud computing hub in Silicon Valley which is the first that the e-commerce giant has set up outside of China.

The new California data centre marks the Chinese company’s latest expansion onto an US market dominated by Amazon, Microsoft and Google.

Alibaba’s Aliyun cloud division intends the new data centre to cater initially to Chinese companies with operations in the United States. Later it will target US businesses seeking a presence in both countries.

Ethan Yu, a vice president at Alibaba who runs the international cloud business said that it was all part of Alibaba’s international expansion plans. The next stage would be a cloud on the East Coast, or somewhere in the middle of the US.

Aliyun is similar to Amazon Web Services and was part of the company’s in-house technical infrastructure. It has since expanded to lease processing and storage space for small and medium Internet businesses in China.

Aliyun, also known as Alibaba Cloud Computing, holds about a 23 percent market share in the Chinese market. It faces both Chinese and foreign competitors, from carriers like China Telecom to Microsoft and Amazon. Its existing data centers span the Chinese cities of Hangzhou, Qingdao, Beijing, Shenzhen and Hong Kong.

Snowden wants to come in from the cold

Posted on March 4, 2015 by - News

snowdenUS spy agency whistleblower Edward Snowden is apparently negotiating a return to the US.
A Russian lawyer for Edward Snowden said the man who the US wanted to give the death penalty for leaking details of its spy schemes was working with American and German lawyers to return home.

Anatoly Kucherena, who has links to the Kremlin, was speaking at a news conference to present a book he has written about his client. Moscow granted Snowden asylum in 2013, which hacked off the US government no end. Apparently they had just found a nice out of the way place to dump his body after they “took him for a walk.”

“I won’t keep it secret that he … wants to return back home. And we are doing everything possible now to solve this issue. There is a group of U.S. lawyers, there is also a group of German lawyers and I’m dealing with it on the Russian side,” Kucherena said.

The United States wants Snowden to stand trial for leaking extensive secrets of electronic surveillance programs by the National Security Agency. Russia has repeatedly refused to extradite him.

Snowden has said in the past he would like to return home if he was assured he would be given a fair trial.

It is not clear what Snowden would get out of a return home. The US government still wants his blood and the only thing the US has promised so far is that it will not judicially murder him for treason.

Russian weather might be motivating Snowden to return, but being locked up and forgotten in a US jail must be a lot worse.

AMD searches for artificial reality love

Posted on March 4, 2015 by - News

AMD, SunnyvaleAMD has been showing the Game Developer Conference in San Francisco its LiquidVR SDK that will help developers customise virtual reality content for AMD hardware.

AMD said that LiquidVR SDK makes a number of technologies available which help address obstacles in content, comfort and compatibility that together take the industry a major step closer to true, life-like presence across all VR games, applications, and experiences.

Its theory is that which company wins the war to make virtual reality worthwhile will be the outfit that can build the strongest sense of “presence.” This is jargon for the feeling you have of actually being in the virtual world.

Like most things computer geeky it can be determined by a maths formula which is based on the speed with which the virtual world (within your view) updates as you move.

If you physically turn your head but there’s even a short pause before your view updates in the virtual world, the sense of actually being in the world is lost.

Oculus has signed up for AMD’s LiquidVR SDK and Brendan Iribe, CEO of Oculus said that achieving presence in a virtual world continues to be one of the most important elements to delivering amazing VR.

“We’re excited to have AMD working with us on their part of the latency equation, introducing support for new features like asynchronous timewarp and late latching, and compatibility improvements that ensure that Oculus’ users have a great experience on AMD hardware.”

AMD showed off several features of the LiquidVR SDK at the conference, including Affinity Multi-GPU, which lets multiple GPUs work together in VR applications (important for framerate improvements) and asynchronous shaders for Hardware-Accelerated Time-Warp, which is meant to improve motion-to-photon latency, or your sense of presence.

Apple fanboys get political

Posted on March 4, 2015 by - News

The late Steve Jobs with an iPadOwners of shiny expensive Apple gear are starting to use their phones to mount political campaigns.

According to the Guardian newspaper Apple fanboys are trolling their politicians with iMessage texts in protest over a law which would increase the length of time the government retains communications data.

Apparently the matter only interests Apple fans, either that or the Guardian can’t conceive of anyone in Australia other than iPhone users getting upset about what happens in politics.

According to the Guardian, Apple’s messaging service, built into iOS devices and the newest versions of Mac OS X, lets users send text, picture, voice and video messages through an SMS-style app or an email address.

Senator George Brandis, the Australian attorney general, was the first minister to be on the receiving end of Apple fanboy wit.

Users sent photoshopped pictures, Blade Runner quotes and questions to the senator, who has been at the forefront of pushing the data retention bill through the Australian legislature.

Journalist Lauren Ingram even messaged him the entire first chapter of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four.

What is strange about this story is not that internet users are trolling politicians, but that the Guardian has only named Apple users as doing it. Unlike usual Tame Apple Press advertising, it seems to be actually true.

It was only possible because the pair had taken part in Jobs’ Mob’s iMessage scheme and hooked up their government email as part of their attempts to be cool with the yoff of today.

Shortly after the iMessage bombardment began, Brandis unlinked his senate email address from the service – but other ministers didn’t move so quickly, and Buzzfeed News reports that Greg Hunt, the environment minister, had his iMessage account hooked up to his government email as well.

DT boss calls for Google regulation

Posted on March 3, 2015 by - News

330ogleThe CEO of Deutsche Telekom has made a very precise call for Google and Facebook to be regulated in the same way that telcos are.

Tim Hoettges said that there was a convergence between over-the-top web companies and classic telcos and there needs to be one regulatory environment to rule them.

Improvements should be made to spectrum policy for the telecommunications industry, and that the loosening of regulation would encourage the type of investment that governments and policy-making bodies are currently seeking from carriers.

Hoettges said that policy-makers should leave telecoms groups adequate operational freedom to develop IoT-related services such as smart meters and intra-communicating cars, commenting: “We favour net neutrality, but we need to be allowed to have quality classes to enable new services in the Internet of Things.”

Being in favour of net neutrality is different from his US rivals who want everyone to pay them twice for a service that the rest of the world gets for half the price.

Interest in the possible government regulation of Google grows in line with the ever expanding services, reach and influence of Mountain View’s empire.

In fact there have been calls for the regulation of Google since 2012 when Dr Robert Epstein laid out some of the most popular arguments for the regulation of Google, partially-based on evidence, fines following controversies such as the extraction of wifi data during the gathering of photographic information for Google Maps, and partially on his view of Google’s real place in the economy as an ungoverned monopoly.

IBM sued for alleged securities fraud

Posted on March 3, 2015 by - News

IBM logoBig Blue has been sued by a shareholder who thinks the company committed securities fraud by failing to write down a money-losing semiconductor unit before agreeing to pay another company $1.5 billion to take that unit off its hands.

In October IBM’s said it would sell the unit to GlobalFoundries (GloFo) and take a related $4.7 billion pre-tax charge.

IBM also announced third-quarter results that day. Its share price fell nine percent over the next two trading days, wiping out more than $18 billion of market value.

According to the complaint, IBM inflated its stock price before selling the semiconductor unit by carrying the unit’s property, plant and equipment assets on its books at $2.4 billion, when it should have known the assets were worthless.

The shareholder moaned that potential bidders had been unwilling to pay much more than $1 billion for the entire unit, including intellectual property and personnel, suggesting that the hard assets had no or negative market value.

The shareholder in question is the City of Sterling Heights Police & Fire Retirement System in Michigan. It also named three IBM officials as defendants, including Chief Executive Virginia Rometty.

It seeks class-action status on behalf of shareholders.

“Defendants presented a misleading picture of IBM’s business and prospects,” the complaint said. “When the truth about the company was revealed to the market, the price of IBM common stock fell precipitously.”