Lunduke
News • Science & Tech
Is Intel No Longer a Safe Place for Jews? New Lawsuit Details.
Intel reassigns Jewish employee, whose family home was hit by Hamas rockets, to new boss who praises Hamas attacks... then fires the Jew for complaining.
August 13, 2024
post photo preview

A new lawsuit against Intel Corporation, filed by an ex-employee, paints a picture of a company which is distinctly anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli.

According the lawsuit:

  • One Intel Vice President (and multiple Intel employees) openly praised the murder of Israelis and Jews.
  • Intel responded to a Jewish Israeli employee having his family's home hit by a rocket from Hamas... by reassigning that Jewish employee to report directly to the Vice President who was praising rocket attacks against Israelis.
  • Intel fired that Jewish employee for complaining about working for a man who calls for the death of him and his family.
  • Intel replaces that Jew with another man who openly attacks Israel.

The Lunduke Journal has reached out to Intel for comment but, as this is an ongoing lawsuit, no response is expected.

You can read the entirety of the suit, but let's go through some of the high level points -- they paint a fairly horrifying picture of the upper level of management within the company.

 

John Doe v Intel Corporation

 

John Doe v. Intel Corporation

 

 

After the October 7th, 2023 attacks by Hamas -- including the murdering, beheading, and raping of men, women, and even babies within Israel -- an Intel executive (Alaa Badr, previously at VMWare) took to social media to proclaim his support for Hamas -- and his desire to see Jews and Israelis murdered.

 

Source: John Doe v. Intel Corporation

 

This included "liking" and sharing numerous social media posts glorifying violence against Jews -- such as "Praise be to God, the trampling was done" with a boot on the neck of a Jew.

 

Source: John Doe v. Intel Corporation

 

With other posts celebrating the burning of Israeli soldiers and declaring they would be "sent to hell".

 

Source: John Doe v. Intel Corporation

 

Alaa Badr, Vice President of Customer Success out of the Seattle offices of Intel Corporation, is a prominent member of the Islamic Center of Bothell -- where he gives weekly lessons (halaqa), often discussing Jews and Israel.

 

Source: Islamic Center of Bothell YouTube Channel

 

According to the suit, Intel was made aware that Alaa Badr (a VP) was wishing death upon Israelis.  Badr's hatred of Israelis, according to the suit, was well known within the company.

 

Here's where the story gets truly insane.

 

The plaintiff in this lawsuit -- who is simply identified as "John Doe" -- is an Intel executive... who is a Jewish Israeli citizen, living in the USA, and a former member of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).  John Doe's family home, in Israel, was hit by rocket fire from Hamas, which nearly killed almost his entire family.

Intel HR and executives were made aware of that rocket strike on John Doe's family.

While that was happening, Vice President Alaa Badr was publicly praising the death of Israelis from the Hamas attacks.

Then, on January 29th, 2024, John Doe was reassigned... with Alaa Badr as his new boss.

This really and truly happened.  In response to a Jewish, Israeli employee of Intel having his family attacked -- with a rocket -- by Hamas... Intel Corporation, almost immediately responded by moving that Jewish employee to now work directly for a man who expresses his public hatred for Jews and Israelis... literally wishing death on them.

According to the suit:

 

"Badr was not shy about his antisemitic views even with John Doe himself.  Badr repeatedly pressured John Doe to tell him whether other Intel employees were Israeli. When John Doe confirmed that specific employees were Israeli, Badr sneered that there were 'so many Israeli employees in our company.'"

 

A formal complaint was filed regarding Badr with Abdul Jarrar -- Badr's boss, and an Intel VP who has been with the company for 26 years -- but no action was taken against Badr.

 

 

Which means that John Doe, according to the suit, "continued to report to a man who would like to see his family murdered.  Intel did literally nothing to protect John Doe."

At which point, John Doe -- the only Israeli on Badr's team -- was fired:

 

"Indeed, shortly after the aforementioned follow-up complaint, in March 2024, Badr viewed John Doe’s LinkedIn profile, which identifies John Doe as a former IDF soldier.  Just a few weeks later, on April 2, 2024, Jarrar informed John Doe that his employment was being terminated..."

 

Then, Intel hired the replacement of John Doe.

Who do they get to replace the Jewish man?

Another person who only expresses hate for Israel and support for Hamas.

 

"The unlawful motives behind John Doe’s termination could not have been more clear when, just weeks later, Badr and his supervisor, Jarrar, hired John Doe’s replacement: Mohamed Ahmed (“Ahmed”). Incredibly, Ahmed openly espoused the same anti-Israel sentiments as Badr."

 

Absolutely wild.

 

Source: John Doe v. Intel Corporation

 

That's right.  Intel moved a Jew -- whose family was being hit by rockets from Hamas -- to work directly for an Intel VP who was praising those very same attacks.  Then, when the Jewish man complained even a tiny bit, Intel fired him and replaced him with someone else who hates Israel.

 

What is Intel doing?

 

Based on a quick search (including LinkedIn profiles), it would appear that both Mohamed Ahmed and Abdul Jarrar continue to work at Intel.

It is difficult to know if Alaa Badr continues to be employed by Intel as he has deleted his LinkedIn account entirely.

 

Alaa Badr's LinkedIn Profile

 

Just the same, Intel has made no mention of Alaa Badr being fired.  And, considering he is a Vice President... the lack of announcement suggests he is possibly still with Intel (at least in some capacity).

Now... it is standard practice for a company to not comment on active legal actions.  As such it is highly unlikely that we will hear anything from Intel regarding this.

That said, this is a very, very big deal.  One which Intel needs to get on top of very quickly.  Both privately and publicly.

Intel simply wouldn't be Intel without early Jewish employees.  Dov Frohman (who lost his parents in the Holocaust) is the inventor of the EPROM.  And, of course, Andy Grove (whose father was held captive and tortured in a Labor Camp by the Nazis) was one of the first employees of Intel (and eventually the CEO).

But has Intel changed?  Is Intel no longer a safe place to work for Jews or Israelis?

If even a portion of this lawsuit is accurate, it suggests exactly that.

And the ramifications for Intel employees, along with large portions of the Tech Industry, could be extreme.  At a time when Intel is already experiencing significant negative press -- including mass layoffs -- this is certainly not the kind of attention that the company needs.

community logo
Join the Lunduke Community
To read more articles like this, sign up and join my community today
13
What else you may like…
Videos
Podcasts
Posts
Articles
Mozilla Bets the Future of the Web is A.I. Generated Content

Artificial Intelligence everywhere. A.I. website builders, A.I. award banquets, A.I. investments. And Firefox pushed aside.

More from The Lunduke Journal:
https://lunduke.com/

00:23:56
September 09, 2024
The Self-Destruction of Open Source Software

Is it on purpose? It sure seems like it's on purpose.

There are simply too many examples: Mozilla, NixOS, Python, Open Source Initiative, openSUSE, Red Hat, GNOME, and so many others.

More from The Lunduke Journal:
https://lunduke.com/

00:49:52
September 07, 2024
Internet Archive Takes Another Step Towards Death

Archive.org loses appeal in book copyright case with the Sony / Universal Music lawsuit still looming on the horizon.

The Internet Archive Loses Appeal. As Expected.
https://lunduke.locals.com/post/6079435/the-internet-archive-loses-appeal-as-expected

More from The Lunduke Journal:
https://lunduke.com/

00:30:58
November 22, 2023
The futility of Ad-Blockers

Ads are filling the entirety of the Web -- websites, podcasts, YouTube videos, etc. -- at an increasing rate. Prices for those ad placements are plummeting. Consumers are desperate to use ad-blockers to make the web palatable. Google (and others) are desperate to break and block ad-blockers. All of which results in... more ads and lower pay for creators.

It's a fascinatingly annoying cycle. And there's only one viable way out of it.

Looking for the Podcast RSS feed or other links? Check here:
https://lunduke.locals.com/post/4619051/lunduke-journal-link-central-tm

Give the gift of The Lunduke Journal:
https://lunduke.locals.com/post/4898317/give-the-gift-of-the-lunduke-journal

The futility of Ad-Blockers
November 21, 2023
openSUSE says "No Lunduke allowed!"

Those in power with openSUSE make it clear they will not allow me anywhere near anything related to the openSUSE project. Ever. For any reason.

Well, that settles that, then! Guess I won't be contributing to openSUSE! 🤣

Looking for the Podcast RSS feed or other links?
https://lunduke.locals.com/post/4619051/lunduke-journal-link-central-tm

Give the gift of The Lunduke Journal:
https://lunduke.locals.com/post/4898317/give-the-gift-of-the-lunduke-journal

openSUSE says "No Lunduke allowed!"
September 13, 2023
"Andreas Kling creator of Serenity OS & Ladybird Web Browser" - Lunduke’s Big Tech Show - September 13th, 2023 - Ep 044

This episode is free for all to enjoy and share.

Be sure to subscribe here at Lunduke.Locals.com to get all shows & articles (including interviews with other amazing nerds).

"Andreas Kling creator of Serenity OS & Ladybird Web Browser" - Lunduke’s Big Tech Show - September 13th, 2023 - Ep 044

It's amazing how often I've been coming across references to artificial intelligence in old computer mags. This comic is from the August 1985 issue of User's Guide.

post photo preview
post photo preview

As a Civil War buff, this magazine cover about the battle between minicomputers and microcomputers makes me smile.

post photo preview
September 07, 2024
post photo preview
Funny Programming Pictures Part LIV
The Roman Numerals makes ‘em fancy.

Fun fact: I hit CTRL-C at least 7 times when copying each of these pictures.

You know.  Just to be sure.

You're welcome.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Read full Article
September 05, 2024
post photo preview
The Internet Archive Loses Appeal. As Expected.
With more legal action on the horizon, how long before Archive.org closes?

The United States Court of Appeals (Second Circuit) just issued a ruling against the Internet Archive (Archive.org) -- rejecting their appeal, and upholding a previous ruling against them in the Hachette vs Internet Archive legal battle.

Make no mistake: This is very bad news for both the Internet Archive, Archive.org users, as well as other archival projects.

 

 

 

Hachette v. Internet Archive: The Short, Short Version

 

To make sure everyone is up to speed, here is the short, short version of this legal battle.

For many years, the Internet Archive has been creating digital copies of physical books (by scanning them) -- then allowing people to "borrow" those digital versions from Archive.org (in theory limiting the total digital books being "lent out" to the count of the physical books in the Archive's possession).

They never obtained permissions from the authors or publishers to do any of this.

In 2020, during the Covid lockdowns, the Internet Archive launched the "National Emergency Library" -- where they removed that "1 physical book : 1 digital book lent out" restriction.  Meaning anybody on the Internet could obtain digital scans of physical books... and the Archive could "Lend Out" an unlimited number of digital copies based on a single physical copy.

Again.  No permission was obtained from the writers or publishers.

Thus -- to the surprise of absolutely nobody -- the "Hachette v. Internet Archive" legal battle began.

And... The Internet Archive lost.  The judge ruled in favor of the publishers (including Hachette, Wiley, Penguin Random House, & HarperCollins).

Naturally, Internet Archive appealed that ruling.  But, boy-howdy, was their appeal a strange one which was destined to fail.

 

The Strange Appeal of The Internet Archive

 

On April 19th of 2024, the Internet Archive filed their final brief in their attempt to appeal this ruling against them.

In that ruling, one of the Internet Archive's core arguments was that it cost the Internet Archive a lot of money to make so many digital copies of books without permission... so, therefore, the Internet Archive should be allowed to do it.

That is neither a joke nor an exaggeration.  It sounds weird, because it is weird.

The Internet Archive truly attempted to make the case that spending a lot of money committing a crime... should make that crime legal.  (Could you imagine the mafia making that case?  Wild.)

You can read the full analysis, by The Lunduke Journal, of the appeal (including the appeal itself) for yourself for more details.

The reality is... there was never any chance that the Internet Archive's attempted appeal was going to be successful.  Their defensive arguments were highly illogical (bordering on flights of fancy), and brought nothing new or noteworthy to the case.  This was all painfully obvious.

 

The Lost Appeal

 

On Wednesday, September 4th, 2024, the opinion was handed down from the United States Court of Appeals.

While the full ruling is roughly 64 pages long, this single paragraph -- from the second page -- summarizes things quite well:

 

"This appeal presents the following question: Is it “fair use” for a nonprofit organization to scan copyright-protected print books in their entirety, and distribute those digital copies online, in full, for free, subject to a one-to-one owned-to-loaned ratio between its print copies and the digital copies it makes available at any given time, all without authorization from the copyright-holding publishers or authors? Applying the relevant provisions of the Copyright Act as well as binding Supreme Court and Second Circuit precedent, we conclude the answer is no. We therefore AFFIRM."

 

To call out the truly important parts:

"Question: Is it 'fair use' ... to scan copyright-protected print books in their entirety, and distribute those digital copies online, in full, for free ... all without authorization from the copyright-holding publishers or authors? ... we conclude the answer is no."

You can read the entire 64 page ruling for yourself.  Heck.  You can even read it on Archive.org.  But that line, right there, sums it all up.

Naturally, the Internet Archive has issued a statement.  Albeit... a short one.

 

"We are disappointed in today’s opinion about the Internet Archive’s digital lending of books that are available electronically elsewhere. We are reviewing the court’s opinion and will continue to defend the rights of libraries to own, lend, and preserve books."

 

What Happens Now?

 

The Internet Archive gets sued by some of the biggest book publishers... and loses.

The Internet Archive appeals... and loses.

What happens next?  Well.  Unfortunately -- for both the Internet Archive, and its users -- the future looks rather bleak.

First and foremost: Has the Internet Archive made, and distributed, digital copies of work you own?  This ruling will certainly not hurt your case should you decide to take legal action against Archive.org.

And -- holy smokes -- the amount of copyrighted material on Archive.org is absolutely massive.

The Archive.org software repository alone contains millions of items.  With a very large number of them being copyrighted material, posted there without permission of the copyright owner.

Simply going by the numbers, here's how much material is available on Archive.org (roughly):

  • 832 Billion archived webpages.
  • 38 Million printed materials (magazines, books, etc.).
  • 2.6 Million pieces of software
  • 11.6 Million videos files.
  • 15 Million audio files.
  • 4.7 Million images.

How many of those items do you think are there without permission (or possibly even knowledge) of the owners or creators?

Every single one now has an increasingly strong case when looking at potential legal action.

And it's about to get even worse for the Internet Archive.

 

UMG Recordings v. Internet Archive

 

That's right, the book publishers weren't the only ones taking legal action against Archive.org. 

Universal Music Group and Sony have an ongoing lawsuit against the Internet Archive -- regarding the distribution of 2,749 audio recordings (with potential damages upwards of $412 Million USD).

Seriously.

 

"Plaintiffs bring this suit to address Defendants’ massive ongoing violation of Plaintiffs’ rights in protected pre-1972 sound recordings. As part of what Defendants have dubbed the “Great 78 Project,” Internet Archive, Blood, and GBLP have willfully reproduced thousands of Plaintiffs’ protected sound recordings without authorization by copying physical records into digital files. Internet Archive then willfully uploaded, distributed, and digitally transmitted those illegally copied sound recordings millions of times from Internet Archive’s website."

 

Sound familiar?  Digital copies.  No permission from the artists or publishers.  Free downloads for everyone.

Naturally, the Internet Archive attempted to have this suit dismissed... but their attempt was denied in May of 2024.  (Because if there's one constant in life... it's that the Internet Archive always loses in court.)  That case is going forward.

 

 

What happens if the Internet Archive loses this UMG / Sony case?  What happens if they are ordered to pay $412 Million in damages?

To put it simply: Archive.org doesn't have that kind of money.  They bring in roughly $20 Million (give or take) per year.  That type of legal liability would absolutely destroy the Internet Archive.

 

 

And, here's the thing, the Internet Archive is almost assuredly going to lose that lawsuit as well.

Regardless of what you, I, or anyone else thinks of the Internet Archive -- and, make no mistake, I use that service several times a week (and love it) -- the law here is incredibly clear and well tested.

The Internet Archive runs one of the largest (if not the largest) website of pirated and stolen digital material on the planet.  Sure, it may also provide extremely valuable (and often, very legal) services as well.. but that doesn't make those crimes go away.

With each legal defeat, the Internet Archive grows increasingly vulnerable to additional attacks.

Simply being logical about it... it seems highly likely that we'll see additional suits brought against the Internet Archive in the months ahead.  Books, music, TV shows, software... Archive.org contains a massive mountain of copyrighted material in all areas.  These are suits which the Internet Archive would be almost certain to lose.

With this reality looming, how long until Archive.org will be forced to shut down entirely?  That day is likely not far off... and a sad day it will be.

 

The Archive Had to Know This Was Coming

 

The truly sad part?  The leadership of the Internet Archive had to know exactly what they were doing.

Every step of the way, it was obvious that they were going to lock horns with publishers (and lose).

Heck, I told them.  Repeatedly.

But, even if The Lunduke Journal hadn't pointed this out... it was a brutally obvious certainty to anyone even mildly familiar with copyright law and the workings of Archive.org.

Which means: The Internet Archive knowingly put their entire service at risk (including the Wayback Machine, the massive archive or pre-copyright audio recordings, etc.) because they wanted to publish copyrighted material against the wishes of the authors or publishers.

Despite this, they continue to push a public perception campaign where they pretend that publishers and authors are burning their own books.  When the reality is... the books are still available a wide variety of ways.  Archive.org simply got in trouble for copying and distributing them without permission.

 

 

Something I find truly fascinating about all of this, is that The Lunduke Journal will -- as usual -- get yelled at (rather extensively) for this article.  For simply pointing out the current reality of copyright law and how the Internet Archive has, knowingly, violated it.

People love Archive.org.  Heck, I love Archive.org.

And people are allowing their love for that website to convince them that anyone being critical of it... must, necessarily, be bad and evil.  An enemy.

But it is not The Lunduke Journal who is putting The Internet Archive in danger of being shut down.

Neither is it Sony, Hachette, Random House, or HarperCollins who are putting The Internet Archive in danger.

No, sir.

The only one putting The Internet Archive in danger... is The Internet Archive.

Read full Article
September 04, 2024
post photo preview
Mount a drive image from a remote server... on DOS.
Want your D:\ to point to an image running on a Linux box across the world? Yeah, you do.

I'm a sucker for software which makes aging operating systems more useful.  As such, I am absolutely enamored with a new DOS utiltity called "mTCP NetDrive".

What is NetDrive?

"NetDrive is a DOS device driver that allows you to access a remote disk image hosted by another machine as though it was a local device with an assigned drive letter. The remote disk image can be a floppy disk image or a hard drive image."

Yeah.  Mount -- read and write -- a drive image remotely (anywhere in the world).  From DOS.

 

 

mTCP -- a suite of networking tools for DOS (like Ping, a DHCP client, an FTP client, etc.) -- has been around for a long time.  The developer, Michael Brutman, has truly done a phenomenal job building and mainting all of those tools.

But NetDrive really turns things up to 11.

  • You can place disk image on a server (remote or local) and mount it from any DOS machine.  The whole thing uses UDP.
  • The DOS driver uses less than 6 KB of RAM.  Keeping driver overhead low on DOS machines is important.
  • The drive images are simple raw disk images -- which means we can mount and manipulate them easily.
  • You can even mount multiple images at once -- from multiple different servers.

Oh!  The server is a lightweight application that runs (with no need for root access) on Linux or Windows.  Want to host your DOS images on a Raspberry Pi?  Yes.  You do.

 

 

What's more, the local DOS system simply recognizes the mounted drive as a standard hard drive (mounted as a configurable drive letter).  Which means that just about any software should work on it without difficulty.

Even disk management and optimization tools, like Norton Utilities, work fantastically.

 

 

As you can imagine, using NetDrive over the Internet can get a bit pokey.  Especially on a less-than-speedy connection.  But over a local network?  The darn thing runs at a very usable speed.

And -- even with potential speed issues when running on a remote server -- I absolutely love the idea of having a set of DOS drive images which I can mount from anywhere.  Heck.  I could even share some of those images with friends -- to use as a sort of DOS repository.

The developer has even added features like "undo" and "checkpoints" to make it easy to roll back "woopsies".  On a DOS drive image.  Mounted on a remote server.

Come on.

That's just nifty.

Read full Article
See More
Available on mobile and TV devices
google store google store app store app store
google store google store app tv store app tv store amazon store amazon store roku store roku store
Powered by Locals