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Homer's blog

Homer's picture

Non-existent Device Mapper Volumes Causing I/O Errors?

A couple of days ago I started getting these errors whenever I ran anything that scanned for logical volumes (Linux LVM2):

Buffer I/O error on device dm-6, logical block 0
Buffer I/O error on device dm-7, logical block 0
Buffer I/O error on device dm-8, logical block 0
Buffer I/O error on device dm-9, logical block 0

My first reaction was panic, as I initially believed my HDD was failing, but after some investigation I realised that the above devices simply didn't exist.

Homer's picture

ISPs Set To Wage Privacy War on their Own Customers

...with the government's hot and eager help, of course.
From the its-about-"terrorists"-not-copyrights...honest dept.

SSRN-The Rise and Fall of Invasive ISP Surveillance by Paul Ohm

The Rise and Fall of Invasive ISP Surveillance
Paul Ohm
University of Colorado Law School
August 30, 2008

Abstract:
Nothing in society poses as grave a threat to privacy as the Internet Service Provider (ISP). ISPs carry their users' conversations, secrets, relationships, acts, and omissions. Until the very recent past, they had left most of these alone because they had lacked the tools to spy invasively, but with recent advances in eavesdropping technology, they can now spy on people in unprecedented ways.

We're already starting to see this undemocratic violation of our privacy and civil-rights in the UK, with sinister initiatives like Phorm from BT (and their criminal partners, formerly known as the Spyware outfit 121Media), and more generally with the mere existence and subsequent overreaching implementation of insidious laws like the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001, and the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, which are now being quite openly abused as a matter of routine investigation into non-terrorist activities.

And the impetus for this destruction of our democracy is ... paranoid and greedy media companies, a.k.a. the MAFIAA®, who "lobby" government to pervert our society for their own selfish ends. "Pervert" is very apt description of how the MAFIAA® gangsters operate, after all they are predisposed to stalking and making abusive phone calls to 10-year old girls.

In a society in which such thugs are not only tolerated, but actually supported by government, whilst that same government declares its entire population of ordinary citizens to be "guilty", and punishes them by revoking their privacy and other civil-rights, it's clear that democracy is well and truly dead.

Your ISP is at the front-line of that battle. It is the weapon the government uses to strike you down.

Don't let them.

Fight back.

Homer's picture

No, Steve Jobs is NOT Dead

iDead

I must admit, it simply never would have occurred to me that the Media stockpiles lists of future obituaries ... until I read this premature ejaculation by Bloomberg:

"The Bloomberg financial newswire decided to update its 17-page Steve Jobs obituary today — and inadvertently published it in the process. Some investors were undoubtedly rattled to see, as our tipster did late this afternoon, the Apple CEO's obit cross the wire and then suddenly disappear. Jobs's battle with pancreatic cancer, and speculation over his health, jarred Wall Street earlier this year and continues to be the subject of speculation."

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British Government Violates Copyright

Gordon Brown's Pirate Website
It seems that an agent acting on behalf of the British government has violated the copyright of the software it used to create the PM's spiffy new Website. As much as I utterly despise the entire premise of Intellectual Monopoly, this is about violating the principles of a Free License, and if it's good enough for the British government to violate our civil rights in the name of Intellectual Monopoly, then it's good enough for the Free World to protect its "property" (in fact Freedom) too:

After receiving many emails on the subject, it’s been brought to my attention that my NetWorker theme for Wordpress has been used by the government of the UK, and it seems they’ve not honored the copyright agreement. The theme was released under the Creative Commons 3.0 license, which requires attribution to me whether the theme is modified or not. The link that I place in the footer of each theme I have available, which points to this website, is the attribution that I expect from each website that uses that theme.

The theme has been heavily modified, and looks very different from the original. However, one look at the source files verifies that it is indeed built on NetWorker.

The website in question is apparently the official site of Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and boasts protection under Crown Copyright.

~ Anthony Baggett, NetWorker developer.

Homer's picture

GPL JMRI Beats Patent Troll Matt Katzer in Court

From the criminal-thug-gets-just-deserts dept.

Ruling Is a Victory for Supporters of Free Software - NYTimes.com

Published: August 13, 2008

SAN FRANCISCO — A legal dispute involving model railroad hobbyists has resulted in a major courtroom victory for the free software movement also known as open-source software.

In a ruling Wednesday, the federal appeals court in Washington said that just because a software programmer gave his work away did not mean it could not be protected.

The decision legitimizes the use of commercial contracts for the distribution of computer software and digital artistic works for the public good. The court ruling also bolsters the open-source movement by easing the concerns of large organizations about relying on free software from hobbyists and hackers who have freely contributed time and energy without pay.

It also has implications for the Creative Commons license, a framework for modifying and sharing creative works that was developed in 2002 by Larry Lessig, a law professor at Stanford.

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