Daily Archives: Tuesday, February 11, 2014

  • 3 things to do on The Day We Fight Back

    Steve WoodsPolitics, Tech

    This Tuesday is a day to fight back against mass surveillance of communications.

    the day we fight back campaign banner

    Mass surveillance is a huge problem, as shown by the Snowden revelations on the communications interception activities of the US’ NSA and the UK’s GCHQ. Governments are spying on us all, endangering the very fabric of democracy. Corporations are asking us to give away our privacy for a little convenience with much the same effect.

    Furthermore, mass surveillance is a hard problem to solve since we are essentially up against a very human fear of dangers hidden somewhere in the dark and we’re being told that surveillance will protect us from those dangers.

    However, surveillance not only fails at protecting us, it also makes everyone worse off in the long run.

    Here are 3 simple ways to do to counter the pervasiveness of surveillance.

    • Make your web browsing more secure by installing the HTTPS Everywhere extension in your browser. This will make it much harder for potential snoopers to intercept your connection with the web sites you look at, and will help to protect any data you send there.
    • Generate a GPG key, and start using it to encrypt your data, especially your email. (There’s help on the web.)
    • Write to one or more of your political representatives. Explain that you are deeply concerned about mass surveillance, and ask them to help end the practice. Be polite, brief and clear.

    By so doing, you have not only made yourself a little more secure, but have also helped others to improve their privacy and have contributed to driving political change.

  • New ReactOS version available

    Steve WoodsOpen Source, Tech

    ReactOS logoReactOS is an open source operating system based on Windows NT architecture with a Win32 subsystem, which is striving to achieve full compatibility with Windows XP (NT 5.1) and Windows Server 2003 (NT 5.2) up to hardware driver level. The developers describe the new 0.3.16 version as “the prelude to many new features which will considerably improve user-friendliness in future”. By way of an example, these new features also include support for themes.

    ReactOS screenshot
    ReactOS screenshot. Click on the image for the full-sized version.

    The most significant new technical feature is the completion of a new version of the Client/Server Runtime Subsystem (CSRSS), an important part of the Win32 subsystem. Thanks to a new driver for the RTL8139 network chip, there is no longer any need to emulate a NE2000 network chip when running under current Qemu versions.

    The developers are currently seeking to bring forward a commercial spin-off with a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter (posts passim). However, to date only some $25,000 of the $120,000 being sought has been pledged.

  • No further development of Sigil e-book editor

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Open Source, Tech

    Sigil logoSigil, the open source editor for epub files, is not be developed any more, German IT news site Heise reports. John Schember, who has been Sigil’s maintainer since 2011, is taking stock after a few months: he had been hoping for a revival in the cross-platform editor’s development after moving Sigil’s code to Github in September 2013. However, there have only been a few commits which also mostly concerned minor matters. However, the most recent version of Sigil – 0.7.4 of October 2013 – can still continue to be used as long as it still works.

    screenshot of Sigil
    Sigil in use on Windows. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

    As an alternative to Sigil Schember is recommending the open source Calibre e-book manager, which has also incorporated an e-book editor in the meantime. Calibre is stable and already comprises many, but not all of the functions provided by Sigil. Calibre’s editor is also being actively developed. Although Calibre’s e-book editor is not using any of Sigil’s code, Schember nevertheless views it as Sigil’s spiritual successor.

  • Free wifi coming to SNCF stations

    Steve WoodsTech

    wifi logoLe Monde Informatique reports that SNCF, the French national railway company, is going to install free and unlimited wifi access in Parisian stations in coming months. Lille-Flandres and Avignon TGV are the two pilot stations which will be equipped with wifi at the end of March 2014. Some forty stations will offer wifi by the end of June 2014. All told, the 128 largest French railway stations out of a total of 3,000 will be connected by the end of February 2015. Passengers will have free and unlimited wifi access after having viewed an advertisement. The connection portal will be identical in all stations and users will need to create a user account to access the service or download the wifi application developed by Métropolis. The signal will cover the areas which the public can access, waiting rooms, the platforms and the cross-Channel areas of Paris-Nord and Lille-Europe stations.

    Nomosphere is the French company entrusted with the technical deployment of the wifi infrastructure and its day-to-day management. Management of the wifi portal and its advertising services will be provided by WiFi Metropolis.