Re: Googles policy "no-change" change?

Sam Tuke <samtuke@...>
> [...] in future this will be stated on your 
> Google+ account, or your GMail account will automatically be searched to find 
> out how you did it. Who knows. A step in the wrong direction for privacy, it 
> seems to me.

Yeah, "don't be evil" my foot! They're a private anonymous-stockholder
corporation, AIUI required by law to be evil if it's more profitable.

> Out of interest I stopped using Google search on most of my machines a few 
> months ago and switched to DuckDuckGo. You can set Firefox to completely 
> replace Google with another, more privacy conscious, search engine - it's 
> fairly easy. Hopefully one day soon we'll all be using a Free Software search 
> engine like YaCy, with better results, better privacy, and more freedom :)

Any guide on setting Firefox/Iceweasel to completely replace Google?
I think I've got all of the defaults and I've installed noscript.net,
but I'm not entirely confident.

I've also tried Chromium recently (the FOSS browser inside Chrome) and
I've been really disappointed with how clunky the privacy controls are.
Am I being dense and using it wrong, or do they not want users to have
any privacy? 

Regards,
--

-- 
MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op.
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In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html
Available for hire (including development) at http://www.software.coop/

Re: Googles policy "no-change" change?

On Wednesday 01 February 2012 10:08:38 MJ Ray wrote:
> Any guide on setting Firefox/Iceweasel to completely replace Google?
> I think I've got all of the defaults and I've installed noscript.net,
> but I'm not entirely confident.

This changes the search field to use SSL DuckDuckGo:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/duck-duck-go-ssl/

This changes the engine used by the awesome bar (must be done after installing 
the addon above):

Go to about:config
Find 'browser.search.defaultenginename'
Change the value of this key to 'DuckDuckGo (SSL)' (without quotes), or 
however DuckDuckGo is labelled in the dropdown list of engines in your search 
bar.

Be aware that DuckDuckGo is imperfect - they have better privacy but currently 
poorer results, and they rely on Bing, which still demotes important FS pages 
according to Roy Schestowitz.

Thanks to my FSFE co-worker Hugo Roy who got this question answered here:

http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/853286#answer-286320

> I've also tried Chromium recently (the FOSS browser inside Chrome) and
> I've been really disappointed with how clunky the privacy controls are.
> Am I being dense and using it wrong, or do they not want users to have
> any privacy? 

MFS Talk. Tues, 21 Feb. "Git: How Linux, the kernel, is developed." by Michael Dorrington

Please feel free to forward this to those that would welcome it.

* Talk: Git: How Linux, the kernel, is developed.
        http://git-scm.com/
        http://kernel.org/
* Speakers: Michael Dorrington

* Location: Madlab. (Manchester Digital Laboratory).
* Address: 36-40 Edge Street, Manchester. M4 1HN.
"(Between Thomas St and the Craft Centre, opposite A Bar Called Common)"
  http://madlab.org.uk/
* Date: Tuesday, 21st February 2012 (3rd Tuesday of the month)
* Start time: 19:00
* Finish time: 20:30

Details
-------
Git is a tool that was created to help with development of Linux, the
kernel. Since then, git has been taken up by many other projects such as
Perl and PostgreSQL.

The talk will give an introduction to git, showing how it can and is
used, the benefits it brings and why you might want to use it. The talk
will still be interesting to non-technical people because it will give
an insight into how the Free Software you use is developed.

Git can be rather mind bending and daunting. Using my experiences of
learning git, and real world examples of using it, I will attempt to get
you over the initial hurdles and get you going.

Fri 17 Feb: SushiBeer geek social

On Friday 17th February a number of us from various geek groups will be 
going for a 'SushiBeer' social at New Samsi on Whitworth Street. We'll 
be meeting outside the restaurant just before 8pm and going straight in 
for a meal.

http://www.samsi.co.uk/samsi-manchester.htm

Prices will be around £25-30 each, a full menu can be found on the 
website. For anyone who hasn't been to these events before, we usually 
order one of the banquet options (there are vegetarian options).

The event is open to all but I need to book a table, so please let me 
know by email (paul@...) as soon as possible if you would like to 
attend. The deadline for booking is 7pm, Tuesday 14th February.

Hope to see you there!

Paul

P.S. You can view details of all the upcoming socials at: 
http://www.currybeer.com

--

-- 
Paul Waring
http://www.pwaring.com

Re: Fri 17 Feb: SushiBeer geek social

On 05/02/12 17:24, Paul Waring wrote:
> On Friday 17th February a number of us from various geek groups will be
> going for a 'SushiBeer' social at New Samsi on Whitworth Street. We'll
> be meeting outside the restaurant just before 8pm and going straight in
> for a meal.

Sorry, that should be *7:30pm* outside the restaurant!

--

-- 
Paul Waring
http://www.pwaring.com

Banking Malware and free/open-source software

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Re: Banking Malware and free/open-source software

Anna Morris <say.hello.to.anna@...>
> I was wondering if anyone has any thoughts about this - specifically if, in
> the "man in the browser" area, the threat level in FreeSoftware is the same
> as in Proprietary?

OTTOMH, it'll depend what attack vector is used to put the man in the
browser.  If it's something like javascript silently installing some
add-on, then it's probably the same threat on both platforms.  If it's
a buffer overflow running native code (and I'd expect that's more
likely because then you can really screw with the browser from outside
its oversight), then the same attack won't work and if you use
anything other than the dominant Windows flavour, you win because it's
less likely.

However, as one protection layer which I feel nearly everyone should
have, I strongly recommend NoScript!

The lack of any similar feature - or even anything as good as the
built-in Iceweasel/ Firefox cookie and script settings - is one reason
I don't like Chromium yet and fear it replacing Iceweasel.

(That's a lot of mailing lists on the To and CC... will they all let me in?)

Hope that informs,
--

-- 
MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op.
http://koha-community.org supporter, web and library systems developer.
In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html
Available for hire (including development) at http://www.software.coop/

Fwd: [Debian-uk] Alternative Computing event

-- 
Sam Tuke
British Team Coordinator
Free Software Foundation Europe
IM : samtuke@...
Latest UK Free Software news: uk.fsfe.org
Is freedom important to you? Join the fellowship.fsfe.org

From: Philip Hands <phil@...>
Subject: [Debian-uk] Alternative Computing event
Date: 2012-02-12 20:12:51 GMT

Hi Folks,

I've no idea if I'll even be in the country when this happens, but it
sounds like it might be worth getting involved in:

> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From:  <email@...>
> Date: 20 January 2012 12:59
> Subject: [admin] [Feedback] Proposal.
> To: admin@...
> 
> Mike =A0sent a message using the contact form at http://lug.org.uk/contact.
> 
> Hi
> My name is Mike, I am the chairman of Amiga North Thames, along with a
> gentleman by the name of Simon Hewitt (ex-VCF event at Bletchley park)
> we are looking to host/showcase an Alternative computing event. No
> Windows, No Macs, just a show for the alternatives.
> 
> We would love to get the Linux community on board, as of yet we
> haven't found a definite venue, we are still looking, and ideally
> datewise, we are looking at May this year if at all possible.
> 
> If this sounds like something the linux community would like to take
> part in, please get in back in touch. (Equally, I would apprciate it
> if you let me know that there is no interest)
> 
> Kind Regards
> 
> Mike Carrillo.
> 

As lifted from Chris Bell's email to GLLUG today:
  http://lists.gllug.org.uk/pipermail/gllug/2012-February/088740.html

Cheers, Phil.
--

-- 
|)|  Philip Hands [+44 (0)20 8530 9560]    http://www.hands.com/
|-|  HANDS.COM Ltd.                    http://www.uk.debian.org/
|(|  10 Onslow Gardens, South Woodford, London  E18 1NE  ENGLAND

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Re: [Manchester] Fwd: [Debian-uk] Alternative Computing event

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Liverpool LUG meeting - Saturday 18th February 2012

On Saturday, 18th February 2012, the Liverpool Linux User Group will be
meeting.  This is a Saturday meeting so there is no talk.

We will meet at Studio 2¹ on Parr Street², at 2.00pm.  A fluffy Tux
penguin toy will be on display so that people can identify the LUG. If
you have trouble finding the group, please feel free to phone or text
my mobile on 0783 034 5001.

Cheers,

Bob

¹ http://www.parrstreet.co.uk/STUDIO2/Home.htm
² http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=53.401377&lon=-2.978772&zoom=18

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