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Posts tagged as “Linux”

Results for Our ‘Red Hat & the NSA’ Poll

It looks as if Red Hat has some work cut out for them if they care what impression folks in the FOSS community have about them. If the results of our Red Hat &the NSA poll are any indication, some people aren’t convinced that the most commercially successful Linux distro on the planet has clean hands when it comes to the whole NSA mess.

A few weeks back, in response to what I thought (and still think) were unfounded allegations that Red Hat has been working with the NSA spying efforts by doing things like building back doors into RHEL, we ran a poll that asked the simple question, “Do you think Red Hat is cooperating with the NSA by building back doors into RHEL?” The poll went up on January 23rd and was ended this afternoon.

Red Hat logo

The Day the Light Came On for Eddie…

Eddie Baker is a 16 year old high school student and his family was one of our Reglue 12 Geeks of Christmas program recipients. Not only did he qualify for a computer, his family was qualified for help with Internet via our Prometheus Project. Eddie is a big guy. He’s well over six feet tall and goes a good 230 pounds. The stuff football linebackers are made of. Football is of no interest to Eddie. When he says so, he’s almost apologetic in the way he says it. Here in Texas, high school football is darned near a religion.

ReglueHe wants to study and work in the field of geology. Specifically, the archaeological wing of geology. Eddie wants to study things like the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction. He wants to know more about what really happened in that time period. He wants to know how the molten rock and metals at our core generate a magnetic field that prevents us from being destroyed in a micro-second by a heartless, murderous universe.

Football is of no interest to Eddie. Eddie doesn’t care about games. He cares about contributing to the human condition in a positive way.

Ken Starks

Ken Starks is the founder of the Helios Project and Reglue, which for 20 years provided refurbished older computers running Linux to disadvantaged school kids, as well as providing digital help for senior citizens, in the Austin, Texas area. He was a columnist for FOSS Force from 2013-2016, and remains part of our family. Follow him on Twitter: @Reglue

Google Beats Troll, Ellison’s Oracle ‘Unbreakable’ & More…

FOSS Week in Review

NSA involved in industrial espionage

Another big non-surprise this week in the continuing saga of the NSA. It appears that our beloved spy agency has been using their secret powers for the purpose of uncovering industrial secrets from foreign companies. So much for the separation of business and state. Reuters reported that in a television interview with a German TV network, Edward Snowden said the agency doesn’t confine its intelligence gathering to items of national security.

“‘If there’s information at Siemens that’s beneficial to U.S. national interests – even if it doesn’t have anything to do with national security – then they’ll take that information nevertheless,’ Snowden said…”

Even the Republicans are jumping on the stop-the-NSA bandwagon, which is rather surprising.

Maintenance–The Achilles Heel of Linux

I grew up in a farming and ranching environment. It’s not the easiest life and it can beat you down if you let it. There’s always something broken, something that needs to be fixed, and if you let it get away from you it can become an overwhelming task trying to set it right.

When my Dad decided to retire from the business, we set about the task of getting things ready for prospective buyers or their agents. One of my jobs was to make sure that the tack shed was in order and all of the tack was wiped with linseed oil and evened up on the wall racks. I was already way behind in my chores and getting to the tack shed was low on my priorities.

Linux Old BarnThe very first prospect took the tour with me and my dad. We were showing him some of the out buildings of which the tack shed was one. When the buyer pulled out one of the trace harnesses, it had a broken coupler and the leather was cracked up and down the trace.

Ken Starks

Ken Starks is the founder of the Helios Project and Reglue, which for 20 years provided refurbished older computers running Linux to disadvantaged school kids, as well as providing digital help for senior citizens, in the Austin, Texas area. He was a columnist for FOSS Force from 2013-2016, and remains part of our family. Follow him on Twitter: @Reglue

Is Red Hat Working for the NSA?

On Friday, Roy Schestowitz posted an article on Techrights which seems to accuse Red Hat of being in cahoots with the NSA. According to the article, the company has been building back doors into RHEL for the spy agency. However, the article appears to be long on accusations and short on proof.

I like both Techrights and Schestowitz. Both are controversial and that’s part of what I like about them. However, before making accusations it’s nice to have at least a few facts to back them up.

Red Hat logoThe article attempts to make the case for using CentOS over RHEL. Indeed, many of us who’re short on bucks and can’t afford Red Hat’s expensive support subscriptions are already using CentOS in server environments. We use it here at FOSS Force to serve web pages? Why? Because not only does CentOS have an extremely capable development team, the distro is in most ways a clone of Red Hat, which means the CentOS development team is able to leverage Red Hat’s research and development and incorporate it into their distro.

Christine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

Mars Kids Explore Their Potential With Kano

I call them Mars kids.

They are the children who will grow up to see the first human step foot on Mars. While the majority of them will watch the epic event of a human presence on Mars, some of them will have another role. They will be the ones that made it possible.

Working as the front man for Reglue, I have the opportunity to watch school kids learn, as opposed to merely seeing the grades they accomplish by learning. I am able to watch the learning process itself. Some of it anyway.

In the summer of 2009, our organization began a summer program called Camp HeliOS. We held a three day camp in which kids took a computer apart and then put it back together again. We made sure that every kid was equally invested in the project.

Ken Starks

Ken Starks is the founder of the Helios Project and Reglue, which for 20 years provided refurbished older computers running Linux to disadvantaged school kids, as well as providing digital help for senior citizens, in the Austin, Texas area. He was a columnist for FOSS Force from 2013-2016, and remains part of our family. Follow him on Twitter: @Reglue

Blame FUD for Microsoft’s Dominance in Schools

What a difference a split-second decision can make.

Two possible scenarios:

  1. You cross the street to make your bus connection, stand at the bus stop, get on the bus and go about your business.
  2. You cross the street to make your bus connection but notice an ad in the window of a corner market, advertising that the lottery is up to ten million dollars. You buy a ticket. You win.

We are faced with life-changing decisions every day, never knowing that different, seemingly inconsequential actions will take us down amazingly different paths.

Ken Starks

Ken Starks is the founder of the Helios Project and Reglue, which for 20 years provided refurbished older computers running Linux to disadvantaged school kids, as well as providing digital help for senior citizens, in the Austin, Texas area. He was a columnist for FOSS Force from 2013-2016, and remains part of our family. Follow him on Twitter: @Reglue

Blackberry Trolls, Coke in Patent Suit & More…

FOSS Week in Review

India drops deal with Google over spying fears

Since the Snowden leaks revealed that Microsoft has allegedly built back doors into Windows for the NSA, we’ve been saying that the spy agency’s actions are going to hurt the U.S. tech industry’s business abroad. Well, it’s started to happen. On Thursday, Reuters reported that India has decided to drop out of a planned partnership with Google designed to help voters access information.

“…the plan was opposed by the Indian Infosec Consortium, a government and private sector-backed alliance of cyber security experts, who feared Google would collaborate with “American agencies” for espionage purposes.”

cokeadThere’s even been more digital security news from the EU, where there’s been a scramble to address privacy and security issues since the NSA scandal began. On January 3, phoneArena.com reported that European phone makers have been coming out with pricey phones designed for the security conscious.

Mark our words. This is only the beginning.