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Meet the Big Tech Critic Behind Hey, Basecamp's Radical New Email Platform
by Peter Reutemann 16 Jun '20

16 Jun '20

'The Basecamp cofounder and creator of web application framework Ruby on Rails David Heinemeier Hansson has become increasingly outspoken about Big Tech's privacy violations and monopolistic tendencies. Now he's inviting you to join the cause -- by switching your email provider. From a report: Two years ago, he and fellow Basecamp cofounder and CEO Jason Fried decided to do something about it. The culmination of that work is a paid, $99-per-year email service called Hey, which launches today. Along with protecting users from the types of invasive surveillance tactics that have become de rigueur online, Hey also contains some radical ideas about the way that modern correspondence should work. Silicon Valley will be watching the product closely: Consumers like to say they value their privacy, but are they finally willing to pay for it? [...] Most people haven't tried a new email service since Gmail launched 16 years ago, if not earlier. A handful of startups have played around with email interfaces in the years since, trying to make the experience cleaner and mobile-friendly, but no one has touched concepts as foundational as the inbox itself. Hansson and Fried argue that now is the time to do just that. They have made several radical changes to the inbox, the most glaring of which is that you, the email recipient, have control over who is allowed to appear there. That means you screen all first-time senders. They've also separated out what they call the "The Feed" and the "Paper Trail," so that there are distinct places for emails like newsletters and shipping confirmation notices. Because The Feed requires opt-in confirmation, it's much more pleasant to browse than Gmail's cluttered Promotions tab. It's also more private: Hey strips incoming messages of the tracking tools known as spy pixels that have become common practice in many emails. (The service indicates any emails that originally had tracking capabilities by displaying a small binoculars icon next to them.)' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/20/06/15/2034209 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Chrome Criticized Over 'Senseless Attack on the URL Bar'
by Peter Reutemann 16 Jun '20

16 Jun '20

'The site Android Police is calling out new feature flags in Chrome's early-release Dev and Canary channels (V85) "which modify the appearance and behavior of web addresses in the address bar." The main flag is called "Omnibox UI Hide Steady-State URL Path, Query, and Ref" which hides everything in the current web address except the domain name... There are two additional flags that modify this behavior. One reveals the full address once you hover over the address bar (instead of having to click it), while the other only hides the address bar once you interact with the page... There's no public explanation yet for why Google is pressing ahead with these changes, but the company has said in the past that it believes showing the full address can make it harder to tell if the current site is legitimate. "Showing the full URL may detract from the parts of the URL that are more important to making a security decision on a webpage," Chromium software engineer Livvie Lin said in a design document earlier this year. However, it's also worth considering that making the web address less important, as this feature does, benefits Google as a company. Google's goal with Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) and similar technologies is to keep users on Google-hosted content as much as possible, and Chrome for Android already modifies the address bar on AMP pages to hide that the pages are hosted by Google. Modifying addresses on the desktop is another step towards making them irrelevant, which hurts the decentralized nature of the internet as a whol' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/06/14/192227 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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regular meetings starting July
by Peter Reutemann 15 Jun '20

15 Jun '20

Hi everyone This morning I received confirmation that the university will be allowing evening meetings again on campus (assuming that the COVID19 situation doesn't change for the worse). The start date is Monday, July 13th, which is the start date of B trimester. In theory, regular WLUG and Python meetings would start up again in July. Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Does the Internet Need a New Architecture that Puts Users First?
by Peter Reutemann 15 Jun '20

15 Jun '20

'Two VoIP pioneers argue in a Wired opinion piece that "Treating the internet like a public utility only bolsters the platform giants," adding "A more secure model starts with control by the people." As we rely on the internet more and more for work, social connections, and basic needs, it is time to talk about the future of meaningful online experiences, and the need for a new internet architecture. We need a user-focused, localized internet. This competitive architecture would deliver an experience that values real-time connectivity over one-way advertising and puts control with the user, not with big tech platforms. This paradigm would flip the model on its head, letting people start with complete privacy and security, and from there allow them to open their channels depending on trust level. It inverts the terms of service, where instead of any platform imposing them on users, users impose theirs terms on the platform. A new architecture that competes with the "public" internet is completely possible, and it begins with a policy approach that fosters the necessary innovation and investment, while allowing for flexibility and experimentation. Fixing the internet is not rooted in treating it like a public utility; it is not to be found in micromanagement by government. In fact, those very backward-looking policies only fuel more harm by protecting the status quo, which is likely why big tech platforms have been so fervently pushing for them... As we argued in challenges to the 2015 Federal Communications Commission's public-utility-based Net Neutrality rules, this also kills investment, startups, and new innovation... [T]he public internet we experience today created the trillion-dollar tech platforms, but it allows for a few entities in Silicon Valley to colonize the entire planet and kill consumer choice. Six companies control 43 percent of all internet traffic. Of those six, three — Google, Facebook, and Amazon — receive 70 percent of all digital ad revenue in the U.S... Exposing everyone to the equivalent of homelessness online for the purposes of selling advertising already exceeds the tolerance of most of us. There exist more valuable uses of connectivity in support of human productivity than conjuring ever expanding modes of performance and creepy surveillance to drive advertising revenue' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/06/14/049230 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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GitHub, Android, Python, Go: More Software Adopts Race-Neutral Terminology
by Peter Reutemann 15 Jun '20

15 Jun '20

'The terms 'allowlist' and 'blocklist' describe their purpose, while the other words use metaphors to describe their purpose," reads a change description on the source code for Android -- from over a year ago. 9to5Mac calls it "a shortened version of Google's (internal-only) explanation" for terminology changes which are now becoming more widespread. And Thursday GitHub's CEO said they were also "already working on" renaming the default branches of code from "master" to a more neutral term like "main," reports ZDNet: GitHub lending its backing to this movement effectively ensures the term will be removed across millions of projects, and effectively legitimizes the effort to clean up software terminology that started this month. But, in reality, these efforts started years ago, in 2014, when the Drupal project first moved in to replace "master/slave" terminology with "primary/replica." Drupal's move was followed by the Python programming language, Chromium (the open source browser project at the base of Chrome), Microsoft's Roslyn .NET compiler, and the PostgreSQL and Redis database systems... The PHPUnit library and the Curl file download utility have stated their intention to replace blacklist/whitelist with neutral alternatives. Similarly, the OpenZFS file storage manager has also replaced its master/slave terms used for describing relations between storage environments with suitable replacements. Gabriel Csapo, a software engineer at LinkedIn, said on Twitter this week that he's also in the process of filing requests to update many of Microsoft's internal libraries. A recent change description for the Go programming language says "There's been plenty of discussion on the usage of these terms in tech. I'm not trying to have yet another debate." It's clear that there are people who are hurt by them and who are made to feel unwelcome by their use due not to technical reasons but to their historical and social context. That's simply enough reason to replace them. Anyway, allowlist and blocklist are more self-explanatory than whitelist and blacklist, so this change has negative cost. That change was merged on June 9th -- but 9to5Mac reports it's just one of many places these changes are happening. "The Chrome team is beginning to eliminate even subtle forms of racism by moving away from terms like 'blacklist' and 'whitelist.' Google's Android team is now implementing a similar effort to replace the words 'blacklist' and 'whitelist.'" And ZDNet reports more open source projects are working on changing the name of their default Git repo from "master" to alternatives like main, default, primary, root, or another, including the OpenSSL encryption software library, automation software Ansible, Microsoft's PowerShell scripting language, the P5.js JavaScript library, and many others.' -- source: https://developers.slashdot.org/story/20/06/14/1722223 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Bypassing DRM On Your Fridge
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 14 Jun '20

14 Jun '20

Certain refrigerators made by General Electric in the US <https://www.theregister.com/2020/06/13/ge_refrigerator_drm_keeps_turning/> have an RFID chip in their water filters to ensure that you only replace them with genuine GE parts. People have figured out how to hack this so cheaper third-party replacement filters will work, and now there is a website explaining the procedure. Quote: The GE website suggests that a water filter is a good idea to avoid exposure to unfiltered water and sediment, inadvertently offering a sad commentary on public water infrastructure and government funding priorities. I wonder how the lead levels are in the Flint, Michigan water supply these days ...

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OpenZFS Removed Offensive Terminology From Its Code
by Peter Reutemann 13 Jun '20

13 Jun '20

'On Wednesday evening, ZFS founding developer Matthew Ahrens submitted what should have been a simple, non-controversial pull request to the OpenZFS project: wherever possible without causing technical issues, the patch removed references to "slaves" and replaced them with "dependents." This patch in question doesn't change the way the code functions -- it simply changes variable names in a way that brings them in conformance with Linux upstream device-mapper terminology, in 48 total lines of code (42 removed and 48 added; with one comment block expanded slightly to be more descriptive). But this being the Internet, unfortunately, outraged naysayers descended on the pull request, and the comments were quickly closed to non-contributors. I first became aware of this as the moderator of the r/zfs subreddit where the overflow spilled once comments on the PR itself were no longer possible. "The horrible effects of human slavery continue to impact society," writes Ahrens in his pull request. "The casual use of the term 'slave' in computer software is an unnecessary reference to a painful human experience." Ahrens' pull request has been reviewed by fellow lead developers Brian Behlendorf and Ryan Moeller and merged into the OpenZFS project repository.' -- source: https://developers.slashdot.org/story/20/06/12/0543254 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Internet Archive Kills Its Free Digital Library Over Copyright Concerns
by Peter Reutemann 13 Jun '20

13 Jun '20

'The Internet Archive's National Emergency Library is finished. The non-profit repository for digital preservation, which began offering millions of e-books for free to address the closure of libraries during the pandemic, buckled under a joint lawsuit filed by major publishers including Penguin Random House and HarperCollins. From a report: Publishers said lending out books without compensation was "mass copyright infringement." The digital library will close next week. The archive of books was initially invite-only and only allowed a given file to be downloaded a limited number of times at once, with each rental limited to 14 days. But then the pandemic hit and libraries closed, so the Internet Archive responded by making all the books accessible to everyone, with no limits.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/06/12/1411237 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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New FreeBSD Code of Conduct
by Peter Reutemann 13 Jun '20

13 Jun '20

'FreeBSD has has adopted a new LLVM-derived code of conduct. The code of conduct requires users to: be friendly and patient, be welcoming, be considerate, be respectful, be careful in the words that you choose and be kind to others, when we disagree, try to understand why. This isn't an exhaustive list of things that you can't do. Rather, take it in the spirit in which it's intended - a guide to make it easier to communicate and participate in the community. This code of conduct applies to all spaces managed by the FreeBSD project. This includes online chat, mailing lists, bug trackers, FreeBSD events such as the developer meetings and socials, and any other forums created by the project that the community uses for communication. It applies to all of your communication and conduct in these spaces, including emails, chats, things you say, slides, videos, posters, signs, or even t-shirts you display in these spaces. In addition, violations of this code outside these spaces may, in rare cases, affect a person's ability to participate within them, when the conduct amounts to an egregious violation of this code.' -- source: https://developers.slashdot.org/story/20/06/12/1430203 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Canonical Releases Important Ubuntu Kernel Security Updates, Patch Now
by Peter Reutemann 12 Jun '20

12 Jun '20

'Canonical already released the other day a new version of the intel-microcode firmware to mitigate the latest Intel vulnerabilities, but now it also published new versions of the Linux kernel for all supported Ubuntu releases, including Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, Ubuntu 19.10, Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, and Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. Apart from mitigating the Intel SRBDS/CrossTalk vulnerability (CVE-2020-0543), the new Linux kernel security updates fix race conditions (CVE-2020-12114) discovered by Piotr Krysiuk in the file system implementation, which lets a local attacker cause a denial of service (system crash).' -- source: https://www.linuxtoday.com/security/canonical-releases-important-ubuntu-ker… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Hands on with Android 11 Beta 1—A new media player and suggested apps
by Peter Reutemann 12 Jun '20

12 Jun '20

'Android 11's first "beta" release is finally out after numerous delays. The beta release works on the Pixel 2, 3, 3a, and 4, and enrolling for the beta OTA at google.com/android/beta. is super easy. Previously, the Android beta has launched simultaneously on plenty of third-party devices, but that's not the case this year. So far, OnePlus has also shipped the beta, and that's about it. Google says that more devices are coming "in the coming weeks." The Android 11 Beta has gone through a wild ride. First, it was supposed to debut at the Shoreline Amphitheater for Google I/O in May 12, but the physical event was canceled due to the coronavirus outbreak. Then it was supposed to debut in an online version of Google I/O, but that was canceled, too, as everyone was still trying to deal with the logistics problems the new shelter-in-place requirements. With no release in May, a surprise fourth preview release of Android 11 was created, and the Beta was delayed until June 3, when Google would hold an online event for "The Android 11 Beta Launch Show." The online Android 11 launch show was delayed, too, due to the ongoing nationwide protests against police brutality and the death of George Floyd. In its latest blog post, Google says the online launch show is also canceled entirely, and, surprise, the company is pressing the launch button now with zero fanfare. Not since Google canceled the launch of the Nexus 4 due to Hurricane Sandy in 2012 has a Google launch been such a hot, hot mess. With the Android 11 Beta finally go for launch, we're still seeing a bit of a mini I/O, even though every event is canceled. Google posted two blog posts, lots of documentation, and 12 videos covering new aspects of Android 11. The company is also planning "11 weeks of Android," a series that will see new developer talks posted each week. So far, the lack of fanfare seems appropriate for Android 11, which seems like a smaller release than we've gotten in previous years. This beta only has two new standout features we can point to.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/06/hands-on-with-android-11-beta-1-a-n… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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UPnP flaw exposes millions of network devices to attacks over the Internet
by Peter Reutemann 12 Jun '20

12 Jun '20

'Millions of routers, printers, and other devices can be remotely commandeered by a new attack that exploits a security flaw in the Universal Plug and Play network protocol, a researcher said. CallStranger, as the exploit has been named, is most useful for forcing large numbers of devices to participate in distributed denial of service—or DDoS—attacks that overwhelm third-party targets with junk traffic. CallStranger can also be used to exfiltrate data inside networks even when they’re protected by data loss prevention tools that are designed to prevent such attacks. The exploit also allows attackers to scan internal ports that would otherwise be invisible because they’re not exposed to the Internet. Billions of routers and other so-called Internet-of-things devices are susceptible to CallStranger, Yunus Çadırcı, a Turkish researcher who discovered the vulnerability and wrote the proof-of-concept attack code that exploits it, wrote over the weekend. For the exploit to actually work, however, a vulnerable device must have UPnP, as the protocol is known, exposed on the Internet. That constraint means only a fraction of vulnerable devices are actually exploitable.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/06/upnp-flaw-exposes-mi… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Linux distro review: System76’s Ubuntu-based Pop!_OS
by Peter Reutemann 12 Jun '20

12 Jun '20

'The subject of today's Linux distro review is perhaps one of a kind—as far as we know, Pop!_OS is the first Linux distribution to be created and maintained by a hardware OEM manufacturer. At the very least, it's the first one anyone has taken seriously. That hardware manufacturer is System76, probably the world's best-known Linux-only laptop manufacturer. Some larger OEMs offer Linux as an alternative operating system on a few models—but System76 sells Linux systems, and only Linux systems. Until 2017, System76 sold its systems preinstalled with Ubuntu Linux. But Canonical left the company cold when it decided to stop development on its Unity desktop environment and move back to Gnome3—and, controversially, System76 decided that instead of merely adding its own private repository and a few packages to a stock Ubuntu install, it would create and manage its own Ubuntu-derived distribution. Crucially, the new distribution would not just be for System76 hardware. Although the company uses the new distro to simplify and retain more control over its hardware setup, it designed Pop!_OS to be a real distro suitable for use—and encouraged for use—on any Linux PC, whether purchased from System76 or not.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/06/linux-distro-review-system76s-ubunt… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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System76 Launches AMD Ryzen-Powered 'Serval WS' Portable Linux Workstation
by Peter Reutemann 12 Jun '20

12 Jun '20

'Linux computer maker/seller System76 has been offering AMD processors in its Thelio desktop computers, but believe it or not, the company has never offered an AMD-powered laptop -- until now, that is. From a report: You see, starting today, you can buy a "Serval WS" powered by AMD. No, System76 is not offering mobile Ryzen chips in this laptop, but instead, desktop-class processors. As you can expect, this 15-inch portable Linux workstation is quite chunky and heavy as a result. With that said, it is simply impossible to cram this much power into a thin and light notebook. "The Serval WS comes with either the 3rd Gen Ryzen 3600, 3700X, or 3900 CPU. The latter is equipped with 12 Cores and 24 Threads, making this laptop perfect for taking on heavy computational loads. Having this kind of desktop-caliber power in a laptop body helps if you need to run complex simulations at your desk or quickly render 3D scenes while on the road. AMD CPUs are also known for having the an extremely high price per performance, which means you get maximum bang-for-buck," says System76. The laptop starts at $1,300 -- and BetaNews has all the specs.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/20/06/11/1634258 CHeers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Activists Rally To Save Internet Archive as Lawsuit Threatens Site
by Peter Reutemann 12 Jun '20

12 Jun '20

'The Internet Archive is a massive endeavor -- it's an online library aiming to "provide Universal Access to All Knowledge." It has digitized millions of web pages, movies, photos, recordings, software programs, and books that might otherwise be lost to history. But it's neither un-censorable nor outside the bounds of copyright law. And now open internet supporters are wondering how to save it before it disappears. ' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/20/06/11/194226 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Android 11 Will Help You Rein In Zombie App Permissions
by Peter Reutemann 11 Jun '20

11 Jun '20

'With 2.5 billion users worldwide, Google has a responsibility to make its Android operating system as secure as possible. But the company has at times struggled to adequately vet apps in the Google Play Store, allowing malicious programs through that thousands or millions of users go on to download. With Google's release of the Android 11 Beta on Wednesday, though, the company is taking steps to make it even more difficult for rogue apps to grab your data even when they do slip by. From a report: Google has worked for years to incrementally tighten Android security under the hood. And the release of Android 11 is particularly focused on expanding privacy improvements to give you more control over what your apps can access and giving more ways to distribute software updates across Android's fragmented and disjointed device population. Android 10 addressed some of this as well, requiring that app developers request permissions and then reaffirm user choices more often. Android 11 adds a feature that allows developer to request one-time permissions for things like the microphone, camera, or location as an alternative to all or nothing. You can share your location with a friend through a chat app once, for example, without granting indefinite location access, or having to remember to wade back into settings to revoke the permission later. "We can see that people are actually leveraging these features from Android 10 and thinking about their choices when they're giving apps access to permissions," says Charmaine D'Silva, an Android product manager who works on privacy. "So building on that this time we've added even more controls." Android 11 will also rein in apps that you don't use very often, automatically revoking permissions if you don't open it for a still undetermined period of time. If you start using the app again you can always reinstate its access, but the permission won't be lurking forgotten. Google plans to experiment with different cutoffs after 60-90 days, with the goal of eliminating stray permissions without breaking functionality.' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/20/06/10/1730228 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Playing Around With the Fuchsia OS
by Peter Reutemann 11 Jun '20

11 Jun '20

'Security and software development company Quarkslab played around with Google's new Fuchsia operating system, which could one day replace Android on smartphones and Chrome OS on laptops. The researchers "decided to give a quick look at Fuchsia, learn about its inner design, security properties, strengths and weaknesses, and find ways to attack it." Here's what they concluded: Fuchsia's micro kernel is called Zircon. It is written in C++. [...] Contrary to every other major OS, it appears rather difficult to target the Zircon kernel directly. A successful RCE (Remote Code Execution) on the world-facing parts of the system (USB, Bluetooth, network stack, etc) will only give you control over the targeted components, but they run in independent userland processes, not in the kernel. From a component, you then need to escalate privileges to the kernel using the limited number of syscalls you can access with the handles you have. Overall, it seems easier to target other components rather than the kernel, and to focus on components that you can talk to via IPC and that you know have interesting handles. Overall, Fuchsia exhibits interesting security properties compared to other OSes such as Android. A few days of vulnerability research allowed us to conclude that the common programming bugs found in other OSes can also be found in Fuchsia. However, while these bugs can often be considered as vulnerabilities in other OSes, they turn out to be uninteresting on Fuchsia, because their impact is, for the most part, mitigated by Fuchsia's security properties. We note however that these security properties do not -- and in fact, cannot -- hold in the lowest layers of the kernel related to virtualization, exception handling and scheduling, and that any bug here remains exploitable just like on any other OS. All the bugs we found were reported to Google, and are now fixed. Again, it is not clear where Fuchsia is heading, and whether it is just a research OS as Google claims or a real OS that is vowed to be used on future products. What's clear, though, is that it has the potential to significantly increase the difficulty for attackers to compromise devices. ' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/06/10/008245 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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KDE Plasma 5.19 Released
by Peter Reutemann 10 Jun '20

10 Jun '20

'The KDE community has released Plasma 5.19, the popular free and open-source desktop environment. "In this release, we have prioritized making Plasma more consistent, correcting and unifying designs of widgets and desktop elements; worked on giving you more control over your desktop by adding configuration options to the System Settings; and improved usability, making Plasma and its components easier to use and an overall more pleasurable experience," reads the announcement. For a complete list of what's new, you can visit the Plasma 5.19 changelog.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/06/09/2035226 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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New CrossTalk Attack Impacts Intel's Mobile, Desktop, and Server CPUs
by Peter Reutemann 10 Jun '20

10 Jun '20

'Academics from a university in the Netherlands have published details today about a new vulnerability in Intel processors. From a report: The security bug, which they named CrossTalk, enables attacker-controlled code executing on one CPU core to leak sensitive data from other software running on a different core. The Vrije University's Systems and Network Security Group (VUSec) says the CrossTalk vulnerability is another type of MDS (microarchitectural data sampling) attack. MDS attacks target user data while in a "transient" state, as it's being processed inside the CPU and its many data-caching systems. More specifically, CrossTalk attacks data while it's being processed by the CPU's Line Fill Buffer (LBF), one of these aforementioned CPU cache systems. According to the VUSec team, the LBF cache actually works with a previously undocumented memory "staging buffer" that is shared by all CPU cores.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/20/06/09/1941205 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Pinebook Pro review—a $200 FOSS-to-the-hilt magnesium-chassis laptop
by Peter Reutemann 10 Jun '20

10 Jun '20

Since we had our own demo of the Pinebook earlier this year, here is another take: 'In early March of this year, I ordered one of the FOSS-driven Pine64 project's newest designs—the Pinebook Pro. The company's manufacturing efforts have taken an enormous hit due to the impact of COVID-19 on its Chinese manufacturing partners, which kept me from receiving my Pinebook Pro until last week. Unfortunately, COVID-19 didn't merely slow down production. It also made QA impossible, which led to enough problems with my new laptop that it's going to need to be replaced. We'll talk about why that is in much greater detail later, but for right now, keep in mind that some parts of my experience aren't as-designed for the hardware. You should also keep in mind that the Pinebook isn't exactly a consumer product—it's a device aimed squarely at hobbyists and tinkerers with offbeat plans and limited budget. Most people will not want to replace their standard consumer laptop or Chromebook with a Pinebook Pro—but it's a fascinating look at what's possible in inexpensive hardware design with an intense focus on privacy, open source design, and community.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/06/pinebook-pro-review-a-200-foss-to-t… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Plundering of crypto keys from ultrasecure SGX sends Intel scrambling again
by Peter Reutemann 10 Jun '20

10 Jun '20

'For the past two years, modern CPUs—particularly those made by Intel—have been under siege by an unending series of attacks that make it possible for highly skilled attackers to pluck passwords, encryption keys, and other secrets out of silicon-resident memory. On Tuesday, two separate academic teams disclosed two new and distinctive exploits that pierce Intel’s Software Guard eXtension, by far the most sensitive region of the company’s processors. Abbreviated as SGX, the protection is designed to provide a Fort Knox of sorts for the safekeeping of encryption keys and other sensitive data even when the operating system or a virtual machine running on top is badly and maliciously compromised. SGX works by creating trusted execution environments that protect sensitive code and the data it works with from monitoring or tampering by anything else on the system. Key to the security and authenticity assurances of SGX is its creation of what are called enclaves, or blocks of secure memory. Enclave contents are encrypted before they leave the processor and are written in RAM. They are decrypted only after they return. The job of SGX is to safeguard the enclave memory and block access to its contents by anything other than the trusted part of the CPU. Tuesday’s attacks aren’t the first to defeat SGX. In 2018, a different team of researchers broke into the fortified Intel region after building on an attack known as Meltdown, which, along with a similar attack known as Spectre, ushered in the flurry of processor exploits. A different team of researchers broke SGX earlier this year. Intel mitigated the earlier SGX vulnerability by introducing microcode updates. However, these mitigations did not last, as two new attacks have sent Intel scrambling anew to devise new defenses. Intel released the new updates on Tuesday and expects them to be available to end users in the coming weeks. Depending on the computer, the fix will either be installed automatically or will require manual intervention. Users, particularly those who rely on the SGX, should check with the manufacturer of their machine and ensure that the update is installed as soon as practical. The new SGX attacks are known as SGAxe and CrossTalk. Both break into the fortified CPU region using separate side-channel attacks, a class of hack that infers sensitive data by measuring timing differences, power consumption, electromagnetic radiation, sound, or other information from the systems that store it. The assumptions for both attacks are roughly the same. An attacker has already broken the security of the target machine through a software exploit or a malicious virtual machine that compromises the integrity of the system. While that’s a tall bar, it’s precisely the scenario that SGX is supposed to defend against.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/06/new-exploits-plunder… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Bryan Lunduke Explains Why Linux Sucks in 2020
by Peter Reutemann 09 Jun '20

09 Jun '20

'Roblimo once called it "a tradition, not just a speech" -- Bryan Lunduke's annual "Linux Sucks" presentations at various Linux conferences. But before you get too upset, in his 2014 interview with Slashdot Lunduke admitted "I love Linux, I have made my whole life around Linux. I work for Linux companies. I write for Linux magazines, but it really blows..." This year he's releasing a special YouTube version of Linux Sucks 2020, the first time Lunduke has attempted the talk without a live audience, "And it feels really wicked weird." But he's still trying to get a rise out of his audience. "Follow me on this into Journey Into Graphs and Numbers Land," Lunduke says playfully, pulling up one of his 160 x 90 pixel slides showing current market share for Windows, Mac, and then Linux "You might notice that some platforms have a higher market share than Linux does," he says with a laugh, describing one slide showing Linux as "scooping up the bottom of the barrel at 1.6%..." "But here's the thing. These numbers have been either consistent, or for Linux, slowly dropping." And then he puts up a graph showing the number of searches for Linux. "If you look back at 2004 -- the year 2004, 16 years ago -- that was the high point in interest in searching for the word Linux (or Linux plus other things). 2006 it was about half that -- so about two years later it had dropped down to about half. Here in 2020 it is so low, not only does it not fill up the first bar of pixels there, it's like only three pixels in. That doesn't happen -- that sort of decline does not happen -- unless the platform sucks. That's just the truth of the matter. That's just how it goes, right?"' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/20/06/07/1941256 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Vulnerabilities in Popular Open Source Projects Doubled in 2019
by Peter Reutemann 09 Jun '20

09 Jun '20

'A study that analyzed the top 54 open source projects found that security vulnerabilities in these tools doubled in 2019, going from 421 bugs reported in 2018 to 968 last year. From a report: According to RiskSense's "The Dark Reality of Open Source" report, released today, the company found 2,694 bugs reported in popular open source projects between 2015 and March 2020. The report didn't include projects like Linux, WordPress, Drupal, and other super-popular free tools, since these projects are often monitored, and security bugs make the news, ensuring most of these security issues get patched fairly quickly. Instead, RiskSense looked at other popular open source projects that aren't as well known but broadly adopted by the tech and software community. This included tools like Jenkins, MongoDB, Elasticsearch, Chef, GitLab, Spark, Puppet, and others. RiskSense says that one of the main problems they found during their study was that a large number of the security bugs they analyzed had been reported to the National Vulnerability Database (NVD) many weeks after they've been publicly disclosed. The company said it usually took on average around 54 days for bugs found in these 54 projects to be reported to the NVD, with PostgreSQL seeing reporting delays that amounted to eight months.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/20/06/08/1417259 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Coffee Run--Blender Open Movie
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 08 Jun '20

08 Jun '20

The latest annual short-feature project from the Blender Animation Studio came out week before last <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVGeM40dABA>. At just about 3 minutes long, this one is done in the style of a 2D-rendered video game. But beware: there are some less-than-lighthearted elements behind the surface.

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Brave Browser Mistake Adds Its Referrer Code For Cryptocurrency Sites
by Peter Reutemann 08 Jun '20

08 Jun '20

'The following report appeared on Yahoo! Finance: Privacy-focused browser Brave was found to autocomplete several websites and keywords in its address bar with an affiliate code. Shortly after a user published his findings, Brave CEO and co-founder Brendan Eich addressed the incident and called it "a mistake we're correcting." Eich said that while Brave is a Binance affiliate [a cryptocurrency exchange], the browser's autocompleting feature should not have added any new affiliate codes. "The autocomplete default was inspired by search query clientid attribution that all browsers do, but unlike keyword queries, a typed-in URL should go to the domain named, without any additions," Eich wrote in the thread. "Sorry for this mistake — we are clearly not perfect, but we correct course quickly," he added. Android Police reports the mistake occured more than 10 weeks ago — and that referrer codes were also included for other cryptocurrency-related sites: The browser's GitHub repository reveals the functionality was first added on March 25th, and the current list of sites includes Binance, Coinbase, Ledger, and Trezor. Brave Software receives a kickback for purchases/accounts made with those services — for example, Coinbase says that when you refer a new customer to the service, you can earn 50% of their fees for the first three months. The nature of these affiliate programs also allows the referrer — in this case, Brave Software — to view some amount of data about the customers who sign up with the code. Coinbase's program provides "direct access to your campaign's performance data," while Trezor offers a "detailed overview of purchases." Brave CEO and co-founder Brendan Eich (who also created the JavaScript programming language) tweeted, "For what it's worth there's a setting to disable the autocomplete defaults that add affiliate codes, in brave://settings first page. Current plan is to flip default to off as shown here. You can disable ahead of our release schedule if you want to. "Good to hear from supporters who'll enable it."' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/20/06/07/2217224 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Ars Technica: We put Western Digital’s dreaded SMR Red drive to the test
by Peter Reutemann 08 Jun '20

08 Jun '20

'Western Digital has been receiving a storm of bad press—and even lawsuits—concerning their attempt to sneak SMR disk technology into their "Red" line of NAS disks. To get a better handle on the situation, Ars purchased a Western Digital 4TB Red EFAX model SMR drive and put it to the test ourselves.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/06/western-digitals-smr-disks-arent-gr… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

New Java-Based Ransomware Targets Linux and Windows Systems
by Peter Reutemann 08 Jun '20

08 Jun '20

'"A newly uncovered form of ransomware is going after Windows and Linux systems," reports ZDNet, "in what appears to be a targeted campaign." Named Tycoon after references in the code, this ransomware has been active since December 2019 and looks to be the work of cyber criminals who are highly selective in their targeting. The malware also uses an uncommon deployment technique that helps stay hidden on compromised networks. The main targets of Tycoon are organisations in the education and software industries. Tycoon has been uncovered and detailed by researchers at BlackBerry working with security analysts at KPMG. It's an unusual form of ransomware because it's written in Java, deployed as a trojanised Java Runtime Environment and is compiled in a Java image file (Jimage) to hide the malicious intentions... [T]he first stage of Tycoon ransomware attacks is less uncommon, with the initial intrusion coming via insecure internet-facing Remote Desktop Protocol servers. This is a common attack vector for malware campaigns and it often exploits servers with weak or previously compromised passwords. Once inside the network, the attackers maintain persistence by using Image File Execution Options (IFEO) injection settings that more often provide developers with the ability to debug software. The attackers also use privileges to disable anti-malware software using ProcessHacker in order to stop removal of their attack... After execution, the ransomware encrypts the network with files encrypted by Tycoon given extensions including .redrum, .grinch and .thanos — and the attackers demand a ransom in exchange for the decryption key. The attackers ask for payment in bitcoin and claim the price depends on how quickly the victim gets in touch via email. The fact the campaign is still ongoing suggests that those behind it are finding success extorting payments from victims. ' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/20/06/06/0445235 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Microsoft Dropped for Open Source Again in Germany: Hamburg Follows Munich's Lead
by Peter Reutemann 08 Jun '20

08 Jun '20

'"The trend towards open-source software on government computers is gathering pace in Germany," reports ZDNet: In the latest development, during coalition negotiations in the city-state of Hamburg, politicians have declared they are ready to start moving its civil service software away from Microsoft and towards open-source alternatives. The declaration comes as part of a 200-page coalition agreement between the Social Democratic and Green parties, which will define how Hamburg is run for the next five years. It was presented on Tuesday but has yet to be signed off. The political parties in charge in Hamburg are the same as those in Munich, who recently agreed to revert back to that city's own open-source software. "With this decision, Hamburg joins a growing number of German states and municipalities that have already embarked on this path," said Peter Ganten, chairman of the Open Source Business Alliance, or OSBA, based in Stuttgart. He's referring to similar decisions made in Schleswig-Holstein, Thuringia, Bremen, Dortmund, and Munich. But, he adds: "The Hamburg decision is nevertheless remarkable because the city has always been more aggressively oriented towards Microsoft. "In the future we will aim to have more open-source software in digital management [systems] and we also want to develop our own code, which will remain open," the head of the local Hamburg-Mitte branch of the Greens, Farid Mueller, wrote on his website. Hamburg wants to be a leading example of digital independence, he stated. The article also adds a final interesting detail. A Microsoft spokeperson told a Germany technology site "that the company didn't see the desire for more open-source software as an attack on itself. Microsoft now also uses and develops a lot of open source and welcomed fair competition, the spokesperson added."' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/20/06/07/0147255 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Mozilla Eyes Decentralized Web-Based Videoconferencing Platform 'Meething'
by Peter Reutemann 08 Jun '20

08 Jun '20

'Last month Techcrunch reported that Mozilla had gone "full incubator" by holding a startup lab called Fix the Internet, followed by "a formal program dangling $75,000 investments in front of early-stage companies..." Fix the Internet had many key themes, including collaboration and decentralization (as well as user-controlled data and privacy-protecting social networks). That event "drew the interest of some 1,500 people in 520 projects, and 25 were chosen to receive the full package and stipend during the development of their minimum viable product (MVP). Below that, as far as pecuniary commitment goes, is the 'MVP Lab,' similar to the spring program but offering a total of $16,000 per team." And one of those MVP Lab teams is Meething, a new video conferencing and collaboration platform from the innovation lab ERA. Meething "aims to be more secure than existing video conferencing tools and run on a decentralized database engine and leverage peer-to-peer networking" according to ZDNet. In their video interview with CEO Mark Nadal, he outlined the following selling points: - Browser based video conferencing gives customers better options for security as well as branding. - Open source architecture is a win and the peer-to-peer networking is more efficient on compute costs. - Meething doesn't require downloads or apps that increase the security attack surface. The total addressable market for video conferencing is large and can support multiple players. Their press release quotes Mark Mayo, a former Chief Product Officer at Mozilla who served as Meething's mentor, arguing that video conferencing on the web "has long promised to enable a whole new world of online collaboration. Frankly, it hasn't delivered. It's been way too hard to build cool products with video and Meething aims to be the zero-barrier-to-entry platform that realizes this future. Soon, video conferencing won't suck!"' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/06/07/1739228 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

How SpaceX Uses Linux, Chromium, C++ and Open Source Libraries
by Peter Reutemann 07 Jun '20

07 Jun '20

'Long-time Slashdot reader mrflash818 ("Linux geek since 1999") shared a ZDNet article pointing out that SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket has an onboard operating system that's "a stripped-down Linux running on three ordinary dual-core x86 processors. The flight software itself runs separately on each processor and is written in C/C++." Interestingly, back in 2018 a Slashdot headline asked whether C++ was "a really terrible language," and Elon Musk replied on Twitter with his single-word answer. "Yes." ZDNet points out that "ordinary" processors are often needed because of the multi-year development time for the spacecraft they power. Their article notes that the International Space Station actually runs on 1988-vintage 20 MHz Intel 80386SX CPUs: Of course, while those ancient chips work for the station's command and control multiplexer/demultiplexer, they're not much good for anything else. For ordinary day-in and day-out work, astronauts use HP ZBook 15s running Debian Linux, Scientific Linux, and Windows 10. The Linux systems act as remote terminals to the control multiplexer/demultiplexer, while the Windows systems are used for email, the web, and fun. Usually, though, chips that go into space aren't ordinary chips. CPUs that stay in space must be radiation-hardened. Otherwise, they tend to fail due to the effects of ionizing radiation and cosmic rays. These customized processors undergo years of design work and then more years of testing before they are certified for spaceflight. For instance, NASA expects its next-generation, general-purpose processor, an ARM A53 variant you may know from the Raspberry Pi 3, to be ready to run in 2021... The Dragon spacecraft's touchscreen interface is rendered using Chromium and JavaScript. If something were to go wrong with the interface, the astronauts have physical buttons to control the spacecraft. Today the SpaceX software team answered questions on Reddit, revealing they use Chromium with a reactive library developed in-house, and that "All of our on-board computers either run Linux (with the PREEMPT_RT patch) or are microcontrollers that run bare-metal code...." Later they emphasized that for the Falcon 9 and Dragon software, "All of the application-level autonomous software is written in C++. We generally use object oriented programming techniques from C++, although we like to keep things as simple as possible. "We do use open source libraries, primarily the standard C++ library, plus some others. However, we limit our use of open source libraries to only extremely high quality ones, and often will opt to develop our own libraries when it is feasible so that we can control the code quality ourselves."' -- source: https://science.slashdot.org/story/20/06/06/2023249 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

2 1

Linux Mint Dumps Ubuntu Snap
by Peter Reutemann 07 Jun '20

07 Jun '20

'ZDNet reports: Mint's programmers, led by lead developer, Clement "Clem" Lefebvre, has dropped support for Ubuntu's Snap software packing system. [...] So, what's not to like? Well, a lot, thinks Clem. As he wrote in July 2019, the idea is fine: "When snap was announced it was supposed to be a solution, not a problem. It was supposed to make it possible to run newer apps on top of older libraries and to let third-party editors publish their software easily towards multiple distributions, just like Flatpak and AppImage." But, he said, "What we didn't want it to be was for Canonical to control the distribution of software between distributions and third-party editors, to prevent direct distribution from editors, to make it so software worked better in Ubuntu than anywhere else and to make its store a requirement." Clem was worried then that Canonical was moving in that direction because: "Ubuntu is planning to replace the Chromium [Google's open-source browser and foundation for Chrome] repository package with an empty package, which installs the Chromium snap. In other words, as you install APT [Debian's program for installing and managing DEB files] updates, Snap becomes a requirement for you to continue to use Chromium and installs itself behind your back. This breaks one of the major worries many people had when Snap was announced and a promise from its developers that it would never replace APT. A self-installing Snap Store which overwrites part of our APT package base is a complete NO-NO. It's something we have to stop and it could mean the end of Chromium updates and access to the snap store in Linux Mint." Fast forward to now, and that's still the case with Chromium, and Clem has had enough: "In the Ubuntu 20.04 package base, the Chromium package is indeed empty and acting, without your consent, as a backdoor by connecting your computer to the Ubuntu Store. Applications in this store cannot be patched, or pinned. You can't audit them, hold them, modify them, or even point snap to a different store. You've as much empowerment with this as if you were using proprietary software, i.e. none. This is in effect similar to a commercial proprietary solution, but with two major differences: It runs as root, and it installs itself without asking you." ' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/06/05/2148219 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Lenovo Will Pre-load Ubuntu and Red Hat on All Its Workstations
by Peter Reutemann 07 Jun '20

07 Jun '20

'TechRepublic calls it "a tectonic shift in the landscape... a massive company showing serious support for both Ubuntu Linux and Red Hat Enterprise Linux." Forbes reports: Beginning this month, Lenovo will certify its ThinkStation PCs and ThinkPad P Series laptops for both Ubuntu LTS and Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Every single model, every single configuration across the entire workstation portfolio. [ZDNet adds that the two Linux distros will also be preloaded.] And it doesn't end there. "Going beyond the box, this also includes full web support, dedicated Linux forums, configuration guidance and more," says Rob Herman, General Manager, Executive Director Workstation & Client AI Group at Lenovo. We're not talking about just hardware certification, either. Lenovo will offer both Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Ubuntu LTS distributions pre-installed... "What's more, Lenovo will also upstream device drivers directly to the Linux kernel, to help maintain stability and compatibility throughout the life of the workstation," says Herman. Lenovo and Fedora are already working together to enable fingerprint sensor support on select ThinkPads, and send that support upstream to benefit all Linux distributions (including firmware being available through LVFS). When I spoke to Mark Pearson, the Senior Linux Software Engineer even mentioned porting certain Windows-only PC management tools to Linux to aid in the overall effort. TechRepublic notes the news "comes on the heels of a number of new Linux desktop support news. This year we've seen the rise of Purism, Tuxedo Computers, Pine64, Juno Computers, Vikings, Dell's continued support with the XPS Dev edition laptop and the Precision line, and now Lenovo." They also argue for continued support for the smaller vendors of Linux hardware. "Companies like System76 are a big reason why desktop Linux continued climbing up that steep mountain called 'Acceptance.'" But their article concludes that "No matter which path you take, you now (as a Linux user) have more options."' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/20/06/06/0113250 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Will The Transition To IPv6 Take 5 to 10 Years?
by Peter Reutemann 07 Jun '20

07 Jun '20

'The Register: IPv4 is here to stay with us for a good few years yet, reckons the the Réseaux IP Européens Network Coordination Centre's (RIPE NCC) public policy manager, eight years after IPv6 was supposed to replace it. Marco Hogewoning, public policy for the Amsterdam, Netherlands-based European regional internet registry, told The Register that despite the best efforts of IPv6 proponents over the last eight years, it might take "five to 10 years" before the world starts to truly abandon the IPv4 address space. IPv6 was first defined in 1996, but with Friday marking the 8th anniversary of (the second) IPv6 "Launch" Day, RIPE NCC was keen to talk up the tech, whose chief benefit is that it provides a much greater pile of internet addresses for all the stuff humanity has dumped online in the last few decades...Musing that "little pockets of IPv4" and some government services hosted on IPv4 are two of the things holding the world back, Hogewoning told The Register: "It's impossible for me to file my taxes over IPv6. As much as I want, I can't get rid of IPv4 in the end because I need to file my taxes. That's a dialogue we try to have with the governments... It's an important step to go to, enabling IPv6 [instead of] IPv4 to make sure we don't force people to have that backwards compatibility."' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/06/06/0245248 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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one week of arch
by Peter Reutemann 07 Jun '20

07 Jun '20

Hi everyone At last month's meeting, we also had a look at Manjaro, an Arch-based Linux distribution: https://www.meetup.com/WaikatoLinuxUsersGroup/events/266792009/ While preparing for the presentation, I played around with Manjaro and quite liked the arch package manager "pacman". Since then, Angus came across EndeavourOS, another Arch Linux distribution, which is a bit more up-to-date than Manjaro: https://endeavouros.com/ So, last weekend, I decided to bite the bullet and upgrade the aging LinuxMint 18.3 installation on my laptop at home. The EndeavourOS installer seemed less polished (showing lots of Space Shuttle Endeavour related imagery) than the likes of Mint or Ubuntu, but it did the job. Always glad that my home directory is on a separate partition. Makes the installation so much easier... :-) I've been using it now for a week and I must say, I quite like it. The MATE desktop, in contrast to Linux Mint, is far less polished, but it works absolutely fine. It feels really, really snappy (and that on a spinning drive!) and it doesn't seem to suffer from the same performance degradation over time like my old Mint installation did: as the days went by, the login screen would take longer and longer to show up after resuming from sleep, the Caja file browser would take longer to start up and everything just felt more and more sluggish. Last night, I flashed an old Samsung S4 with LineageOS (Android 9) and I didn't have to resort to compiling Heimdall myself, the Arch repositories already had packages built on the latest code from the repository. Nice! Only problem so far are the proprietary Brother printer drivers. Haven't been able to get printing working yet (the package for the printer in the arch repositories didn't do anything). Something to figure out on a rainy day... Anyway, looks like I'm sort of an Arch convert now. ;-) Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Windows 10 Is Hostile To Open Source
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 06 Jun '20

06 Jun '20

From <https://www.theregister.com/2020/06/05/windows_10_microsoft_defender_smarts…>: A developer of a Windows utility has protested that "Microsoft Defender SmartScreen is hurting independent developers" because of the number of warnings and obstacles placed in front of users who download installers that are not signed or sufficiently well known. In the absence of a “Let’s Encrypt” equivalent for them, code-signing certificates cost money. And on top of that, SmartScreen’s warnings will not go away until that certificate has built up some (unspecified) minimum level of “reputation”. Because of this, many projects, like Ardour and Inkscape, don’t bother with signing, and rely on their users to negotiate the obstacle course of download and installation warnings.

1 0

Follow-up to the EFF .ORG petition
by Ian Stewart 06 Jun '20

06 Jun '20

You may remember, from over a month ago, there was circulation on WLUG email of a request to sign a petition<https://act.eff.org/action/help-stop-the-sale-of-public-interest-registry-t…> of Electronic Frontier Foundation to "Help Stop the Sale of Public Interest Registry to a Private Equity Firm"... "This month [November 2019] it was suddenly announced that the nonprofit that owns the .ORG domain registry was planning to sell it to a private equity firm, Ethos Capital. This could impact the millions of individuals and organizations that have a .ORG website, subjecting them to potential censorship and leaving the door open for price increases on domain registration and renewals." You may be wondering what happened. I've just looked at the wikipedia entry for .ORG, and it contains the following paragraph based on this article from the The Verge<https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/30/21241946/icann-dot-org-isoc-ethos-capita…>: "In November 2019, the Public Interest Registry (PIR) was to be sold by the Internet Society to shell company Ethos Capital for US$1.135 billion. The PIR also announced it would abandon its non-profit status to become a B Corporation. However, this move was criticized by non-profits and various digital rights groups on concerns that Ethos Capital, a private equity firm, would raise fees or censor the domain. The sale was blocked by Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in April 2020 on the basis that transfer of control of the domain to the private equity firm would create "unacceptable uncertainty" for non-profits that relied on the .org domain." While Wikipedia's entry on .ORG<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.org> has a brief history section, more details can be found at Wikipedias Public Interest Registry webpage<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Interest_Registry>. In case you find its TL;DR here are some snippets... the Internet Society proposed creating the Public Interest Registry as a separate 501(c)3 non-profit to manage .ORG when the Public Interest Registry was established, “our aim was to promote the non-commercial use of the internet" Public Interest Registry released an open letter on 1 May 2019, stating, “The .ORG Community always is considered in every decision we make here at Public Interest Registry. Rest assured, we will not raise prices unreasonably. In fact, we currently have no specific plans for any price increases for .ORG.” On 13 May 2019, ICANN announced that they would remove the price cap on .ORG registrations. ...former ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé registered the domain name EthosCapital.com. On 14 May 2019, Ethos Capital was incorporated in Delaware On 13 November 2019 the Internet Society announced that it was divesting of the Public Interest Registry, and that Ethos Capital would be acquiring its assets Ethos Capital stated on their website, "Our plan is to live within the spirit of historic practice when it comes to pricing," which they later clarified to mean raising prices by an average of 10% per year. People who came out in opposition to the sale included Tim Berners-Lee... On 29 November 2019, it was revealed that the purchase price is $1.135 billion. On 30 April 2020, the ICANN Board, saying it was "the right thing to do," withheld its consent to the transfer of control of the Public Internet Registry to Ethos Capital, effectively killing the proposed deal. In Summary The .ORG remains in the hands of the "Public Interest Registry" which seems to sometimes get called the "Public Internet Registry"? The "Public Interest Registry" pir.org link takes you to https://thenew.org/org-people/ where, among other things, you can download the PIR 2018 Annual Report<https://thenew.org/app/uploads/2019/09/PIR-2018-Annual-Report.pdf> or their 2018 Form 990<https://thenew.org/app/uploads/2019/09/PIR-2017_2018-990.zip> "Return of Organization Exempt From Tax". For 2018 you will see their total revenue was $93 million. cheers, Ian.

1 0

Linux not Windows: Why Munich is shifting back from Microsoft to open source – again
by Peter Reutemann 05 Jun '20

05 Jun '20

'In a notable U-turn for the city, newly elected politicians in Munich have decided that its administration needs to use open-source software, instead of proprietary products like Microsoft Office. "Where it is technologically and financially possible, the city will put emphasis on open standards and free open-source licensed software," a new coalition agreement negotiated between the recently elected Green party and the Social Democrats says. The agreement was finalized Sunday and the parties will be in power until 2026. "We will adhere to the principle of 'public money, public code'. That means that as long as there is no confidential or personal data involved, the source code of the city's software will also be made public," the agreement states.' -- source: https://www.zdnet.com/article/linux-not-windows-why-munich-is-shifting-back… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

2 2

Signal Launches Face-Blurring Tool as US Protesters Embrace Encrypted Messaging
by Peter Reutemann 05 Jun '20

05 Jun '20

'Law enforcement officials across the U.S. have already revealed that they will leverage facial recognition technology to retroactively target protesters following the killing of George Floyd, with police asking the public for footage and photos. Against this backdrop, Signal is introducing a new feature that can automatically obfuscate faces shared within the encrypted messaging app, as the company says it's "working hard to keep up with the increased traffic" from protesters. From a report: Moving forward, Signal users will be able to activate a feature in the main photo editing toolbox that will automatically blur all faces it identifies in an image. As with many automated computer vision tools, Signal doesn't claim that its face-blurring smarts are 100% effective. It may not identify all faces in a photo, which is why users can manually obscure faces by drawing the blur brush across each face with their finger.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/20/06/04/1621201 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Does Ringing Room Use BBB?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 04 Jun '20

04 Jun '20

Came across this site <https://ringingroom.com/> mentioned on the TV news this evening. It’s a “virtual bell tower” where fans of bell-ringing can gather to scratch their itch during lockdown in the UK and US. The thing that strikes me is, it look remarkably similar, at least in concept, to Web conferencing software BigBlueButton <https://bigbluebutton.org/>. I wonder if it’s an application/customization of the latter?

1 0

Zoom Won't Encrypt Free Calls Because it Wants To Comply With Law Enforcement
by Peter Reutemann 04 Jun '20

04 Jun '20

'If you're a free Zoom user, and waiting for the company to roll out end-to-end encryption for better protection of your calls, you're out of luck. From a report: Free calls won't be encrypted, and law enforcement will be able to access your information in case of 'misuse' of the platform. Zoom CEO Eric Yuan today said that the video conferencing app's upcoming end-to-end encryption feature will be available to only paid users.' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/20/06/03/1150245 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

6 9

TrueNAS isn’t abandoning BSD—but it is adopting Linux
by Peter Reutemann 04 Jun '20

04 Jun '20

'To the surprise—and likely consternation—of BSD fans everywhere, FreeNAS vendor iXsystems is building a new version of its core product, TrueNAS, on top of Debian Linux. This week's TrueNAS Scale announcement builds on the company's March announcement that its commercial project TrueNAS and its community project FreeNAS would be merging into a common base. Effectively, all the NAS projects from iXsystems will be TrueNAS variants moving forward, with the free-to-use version being TrueNAS Core, the new Debian-based project becoming TrueNAS Scale, and the commercial project remaining simply TrueNAS.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/06/truenas-isnt-abandoning-bsd-but-it-… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

2 1

New Cold Boot Attack Affects Seven Years of LG Android Smartphones
by Peter Reutemann 04 Jun '20

04 Jun '20

'South Korean phone manufacturer LG has released a security update last month to fix a vulnerability that impacts its Android smartphones sold over the past seven years. From a report: The vulnerability, tracked under the identifier of CVE-2020-12753, impacts the bootloader component that ships with LG smartphones. In March this year, US software engineer Max Thomas discovered a vulnerability in the bootloader component that had been added to LG smartphones starting with the LG Nexus 5 series. In a technical breakdown of the vulnerability published on Tuesday, Thomas says the bootloader component's graphics package contains a bug that lets attackers sneak in their own code to run alongside the bootloader's graphics under certain conditions, such as when the battery dies out and when the device is in the bootloader's Download Mode. Thomas says that threat actors who perfectly time an attack can gain the ability to run their own custom code, which could allow them to take over the bootloader, and inherently the entire device.' -- source: https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/20/06/03/1830216 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Google fixes Android flaws that allow code execution with high system rights
by Peter Reutemann 03 Jun '20

03 Jun '20

'Google has shipped security patches for dozens of vulnerabilities in its Android mobile operating system, two of which could allow hackers to remotely execute malicious code with extremely high system rights. In some cases, the malware could run with highly elevated privileges, a possibility that raises the severity of the bugs. That’s because the bugs, located in the Android System component, could enable a specially crafted transmission to execute arbitrary code within the context of a privileged process. In all, Google released patches for at least 34 security flaws, although some of the vulnerabilities were present only in devices available from manufacturer Qualcomm.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/06/google-fixes-android… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

DOD's Third Attempt To Implement IPv6 Isn't Going Well
by Peter Reutemann 03 Jun '20

03 Jun '20

'The US Department of Defense is woefully behind on its plan to upgrade its IT infrastructure to support the newer IPv6 protocol, according to a government report published on Monday. From a report: This current effort is the third time the DOD attempts to upgrade its infrastructure to support IPv6 over in the past 17 years. The first two attempts took place in 2003 and 2010, respectively. The 2003 effort was abandoned with the DOD citing security risks and a lack of personnel trained in IPv6, while the second attempt was also abandoned, similarly on the grounds that IPv6 was not yet secure enough for the DOD's sensitive networks. On Monday, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the auditing agency of the US government, said that the DOD's third attempt isn't doing any better either. GAO officials said the DOD failed to follow four basic requirements that were set out by the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in 2006. The four requirements were part of an OMB guideline sent to all federal agencies detailing the proper procedure for upgrading networks from IPv4 to IPv6. "For its current [third] initiative, DOD has not completed three of four longstanding OMB requirements," GAO auditors said in a report published on Monday.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/06/02/1447254 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Firefox 77 Arrives With Faster JavaScript Debugging and Optional Permissions
by Peter Reutemann 03 Jun '20

03 Jun '20

'Mozilla today launched Firefox 77 for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Firefox 77 includes faster JavaScript debugging, optional permissions for extensions, and Pocket recommendations in the U.K. You can download Firefox 77 for desktop now from Firefox.com, and all existing users should be able to upgrade to it automatically. According to Mozilla, Firefox has about 250 million active users, making it a major platform for web developers to consider. [...] Other than Pocket recommendations arriving in the U.K. (they've been in Canada, Germany, and the U.S. since April 2018), this is primarily a developer release. Firefox's Debugger is now better at handling large web apps with all their bundling, live reloading, and dependencies. Mozilla is promising performance improvements that speed up pausing and stepping, as well as cutting down on memory usage over time. Source maps should also see performance boosts -- some inline source maps load 10 times faster -- and improved reliability for many configurations. The debugger will now also respect the currently selected stack when stepping, which is useful when you've stepped into a function call or paused in a library method further down in the stack.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/06/02/1530214 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Wallpaper crash explained: Here’s how a simple image can soft-brick phones
by Peter Reutemann 02 Jun '20

02 Jun '20

'How can a simple image crash an Android phone to the point that it becomes unusable? It’s a question that came out frequently over the past 24 hours, as news of a “cursed wallpaper” spread around the web. Here’s a recap: Setting a particular image as wallpaper can send some phones into a loop of crashes that makes them unusable. There are a few solutions, depending on how hard the phone is hit. Some users were able to change the wallpaper in the short interval between crashes. Others had success deleting the wallpaper using the recovery tool TWRP. But in most cases, the only solution was to reset the phone to factory settings, losing any data that’s not backed up. The issue was brought to light by Ice Universe, the Chinese Twitter users known for leaks. Based on user reports, many models from Samsung and Google are affected, while we’ve also seen some reports from users of OnePlus, Nokia, and Xiaomi devices (it’s not clear if these latter devices ran stock software or custom ROMs). From our own testing and looking at user reports, Huawei devices seem to be less exposed to the wallpaper crash issue.' -- source: https://www.androidauthority.com/android-wallpaper-crash-1124577/ Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

2 1

Programmers Use 80 Characters Per Line!?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 02 Jun '20

02 Jun '20

Are there still people writing their code to the constraints of 80-column CRT terminals which vanished into museums decades ago? Seems there are enough such around to rile Linus Torvalds <https://www.theregister.com/2020/06/01/linux_5_7/>. Even back in the days of those terminals, the printers you used for hard-copy listings could almost always do 132-column lines. And some of the terminals could be put into a mode with such a line length, by using a much narrower font (I remember it hurt my eyes to do much work in this mode). Nowadays I typically have my text-editor windows set to a width of 100 columns. And there is still enough room on my screen for two such views side-by-side.

1 0

Lawsuit Over Online Book Lending Could Bankrupt Internet Archive
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 02 Jun '20

02 Jun '20

A group of book publishers is suing the Internet Archive over its recent loosening of restrictions on lending out copyrighted books <https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/06/publishers-sue-internet-archive…>. Choice description of the founder of the Internet Archive: "Brewster Kahle is what the Russians might call a holy fool—someone who acts without real regard for himself or the worldly things in the service of a higher calling," [copyright scholar James] Grimmelmann said.

1 0

Cisco Discloses Security Breach That Impacted VIRL-PE Infrastructure
by Peter Reutemann 01 Jun '20

01 Jun '20

'Thursday Cisco disclosed a security breach that impacted a small part of its backend infrastructure and two of its commercial products also bundling the SaltStack software package as part of their firmware. ZDNet reports: Cisco said that hackers used a vulnerability in the SaltStack software package, which Cisco bundles with some products, to gain access to six servers... The six servers provide the backend infrastructure for VIRL-PE (Internet Routing Lab Personal Edition), a Cisco service that lets users model and create virtual network architectures to test network setups before deploying equipment in real situations. "Cisco identified that the Cisco maintained salt-master servers that are servicing Cisco VIRL-PE releases 1.2 and 1.3 were compromised," the company said Thursday. Cisco said it patched and remediated all hacked VIRL-PE servers on May 7, when it deployed updates for the SaltStack software. However, the issue isn't localized to Cisco's backend infrastructure alone. Cisco says that two of its commercial products also bundle the SaltStack software package as part of their firmware. These are the aforementioned Cisco VIRL-PE, and Cisco Modeling Labs Corporate Edition (CML), another network modeling tool. Both VIRL-PE and CML can be used in Cisco-hosted and on-premise scenarios. In case companies use the two products on location, Cisco says CML and VIRL-PE need to be patched.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/05/30/055201 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

2 1

An advanced and unconventional hack is targeting industrial firms
by Peter Reutemann 01 Jun '20

01 Jun '20

'Attackers are putting considerable skill and effort into penetrating industrial companies in multiple countries, with hacks that use multiple evasion mechanisms, an innovative encryption scheme, and exploits that are customized for each target with pinpoint accuracy. The attacks begin with emails that are customized for each target, a researcher at security firm Kaspersky Lab reported this week. For the exploit to trigger, the language in the email must match the localization of the target’s operating system. For example, in the case of an attack on a Japanese company, the text of the email and an attached Microsoft Office document containing a malicious macro had to be written in Japanese. Also required: an encrypted malware module could be decrypted only when the OS had a Japanese localization as well. Recipients who click on a request to urgently enable the document’s active content will see no indication anything is amiss. Behind the scenes, however, a macro executes a Powershell script. The reason it stays hidden: the command parameters: - ExecutionPolicy ByPass—to override organization policies - WindowStyle Hidden. This hides the PowerShell window - NoProfile, which executes the script with no end-user configuration.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/05/an-advanced-and-unco… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

GitHub Warns Java Developers of New Malware Poisoning NetBeans Projects
by Peter Reutemann 01 Jun '20

01 Jun '20

'GitHub issued a security alert Thursday warning about new malware spreading on its site via boobytrapped Java projects, ZDNet reports: The malware, which GitHub's security team has named Octopus Scanner, has been found in projects managed using the Apache NetBeans IDE (integrated development environment), a tool used to write and compile Java applications. GitHub said it found 26 repositories uploaded on its site that contained the Octopus Scanner malware, following a tip it received from a security researcher on March 9. But the article adds GitHub "believes that many more projects have been infected during the past two years." GitHub says that when other users would download any of the 26 projects, the malware would behave like a self-spreading virus and infect their local computers. It would scan the victim's workstation for a local NetBeans IDE installation, and proceed to burrow into the developer's other Java projects. The malware, which can run on Windows, macOS, and Linux, would then download a remote access trojan (RAT) as the final step of its infection, allowing the Octopus Scanner operator to rummage through an infected victim's computer, looking for sensitive information. GitHub says the Octopus Scanner campaign has been going on for years, with the oldest sample of the malware being uploaded on the VirusTotal web scanner in August 2018, time during which the malware operated unimpeded.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/05/30/2031219 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Zoom's New, Stronger Encryption May Only Protect Paying Clients
by Peter Reutemann 01 Jun '20

01 Jun '20

'"Zoom plans to strengthen the encryption of its service for paying customers," reports Newsweek, "but the upgrade will not be available to users of its free service." Zoom security consultant Alex Stamos later confirmed the details of the reported move in an interview with Reuters, which first reported the changes on Friday. But he also told the news outlet that Zoom's plans could still change. "The CEO is looking at different arguments," Stamos said. "The current plan is paid customers plus enterprise accounts where the company knows who they are." In the wake of privacy concerns, he added that Zoom was making significant efforts to upgrade safety and trust on its platform. In an emailed statement to Newsweek, a Zoom spokesperson said: "Zoom's approach to end-to-end encryption is very much a work in progress — everything from our draft cryptographic design, which was just published last week, to our continued discussions around which customers it would apply to." The tech company's plans to boost the encryption of video calls on its platform have been revealed a month after it was reported that half a million Zoom account credentials were being sold on the Dark Web. Zoom's increased usage during lockdowns brought increase scrutiny, reports CNET, which "revealed several Zoom security problems and the fact that an earlier Zoom boast of end-to-end encryption was baseless."' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/20/05/30/2311256 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Should Maintainers of Open Source Projects Be Paid?
by Peter Reutemann 01 Jun '20

01 Jun '20

'Matt Asay, a former COO of Canonical now working at AWS, writes "Over the last few weeks I've interviewed a range of open source project maintainers, most of which don't directly get paid for supporting their projects... Is this a bad thing?" It's not completely clear. Linux Foundation executive Chris Aniszczyk has been an outspoken opponent of open source "tip jars" that seek to sustain projects with donations. "These [open source developers] should be encouraged to start businesses or your business should hire them directly," he argues. But many such developers don't want a 9-to-5 corporate job, preferring the independence of contract work. Open source sustainability, in other words, is messy. Most open source project maintainers with whom I've spoken got started because it was a "fun" way to spend their free time. They had a variety of personal "itches" they needed to scratch. Exactly none started coding because they were hoping to get paid for that work. In fact, in some cases, it was specifically to create space from their employer that they started the project. For Datasette founder Simon Willison, for example, he "wanted a creative outlet." That is, a project that he got to have complete control over. In some ways, he said, it was perhaps "a way of blowing off steam," but really it was a place where he could express his creativity without a corporate overlord steering that creativity. See the problem...? Aniszczyk reasonably suggests that the most sustainable source of funding is a paycheck, but that's precisely what many of these developers don't want. Or, at least, they don't want a paycheck that comes with restrictions on their ability to code freely... [O]pen source sustainability will never have one, meta answer for all of open source. It's always a project-by-project analysis and, really, a founder-by-founder (or community-by-community) decision. ' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/05/31/0138252 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Ardour 6.0 Is Out
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 29 May '20

29 May '20

Most of us are happy with Audacity for our audio-editing needs, but if you need full on pro-quality audio production, Ardour is it <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/05/28/ardour_6_release/>. I did try running it briefly once, but like Blender, you really need an introductory tutorial or two to make at least some initial sense of it all--you cannot just dive in blindly and expect to figure it out by messing around.

2 1

Microsoft Announces The Official “Windows Package Manager”
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 29 May '20

29 May '20

<https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/05/20/microsoft_announces_official_windo…>: Among the best features of Linux is the availability of package managers, such as Debian's Apt, that can install, remove and manage dependencies for applications from the command line. It is not perfect – dependency version issues or broken configuration files can be a problem – but most of the time it makes it easy to get what you want, and is scriptable. Many users would like Windows to be equally convenient to use. Only it’s not quite there yet: More seriously, the current preview is limited to installation; it does not even have a remove option for packages. It does not auto-update packages or even have any mechanism to update them, and there is no specific dependency management. On the to-do list are features including uninstall, update, and Store app support. Hence the filing of a bug report pointing out that “All it does is downloading installers (which are not packages) and executing them (which is not management)”.

1 1

A $350 “anti-5G” device is just a 128MB USB stick, teardown finds
by Peter Reutemann 29 May '20

29 May '20

'Believers of 5G conspiracy theories have apparently been buying a $350 anti-5G USB key that—not surprisingly—appears to just be a regular USB stick with only 128MB of storage. As noted by the BBC today, the "5GBioShield" USB stick "was recommended by a member of Glastonbury Town Council's 5G Advisory Committee, which has called for an inquiry into 5G." The company that sells 5GBioShield claims it "is the result of the most advanced technology currently available for balancing and prevention of the devastating effects caused by non-natural electric waves, particularly (but not limited to) 5G, for all biological life forms." The product's website charges £283 for a single 5GBioShield, which converts to nearly $350. That's what it costs to get "protection for your home and family, thanks to the wearable holographic nano-layer catalyser, which can be worn or placed near to a smartphone or any other electrical, radiation or EMF emitting device." "The 5GBioShield makes it possible, thanks to a uniquely applied process of quantum nano-layer technology, to balance the imbalanced electric oscillations arising from all electric fog induced by all devices such as: laptops, cordless phones, wlan, tablets, etc.," the company says, adding that the USB stick "brings balance into the field at the atomic and cellular level restoring balanced effects to all harmful (ionized and non-ionized) radiation." The USB stick apparently doesn't need to be plugged in to anything to work its magic. "It is always ON and working—that's why we used quantum nano-layer technology," the company says in an FAQ. But the device allegedly produces a wider field of protection when it is plugged in. To answer the question of whether the stick needs to be "charged regularly," the FAQ says, "No—the input charge only expands the field effect from 4m radius to 20m + radius when plugged into an USB wall charger or a computer." Fortunately, you can use 5GBioShield without disabling your Wi-Fi. The USB key doesn't block Wi-Fi signals, the company says. Instead, the product "transmutes" the signals and "harmonizes all harmful frequencies into life affirming frequencies."' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/05/5g-conspiracy-theorists-sell-35… Oh dear... Techno-babble to scam the uneducated always seems to work... Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

2 1

Using Curl to make REST API requests
by Peter Reutemann 29 May '20

29 May '20

'An application program interface (API) is a set of definitions and protocols that allows software programs to communicate with each other. The term REST stands for representational state transfer. It is an architectural style that consists of a set of constraints to be used when creating web services. RESTful API is an API that follows the REST architecture. Typically REST APIs use the HTTP protocol for sending and retrieving data and JSON formatted responses. You can use the standard HTTP methods to create, view, update, or delete resources through the API. To test and interact with the RESTful APIs, you can use any library or tool that can make HTTP requests. API requests are made up of four different parts: - The endpoint. This is the URL that the client uses to communicate with the server. - The HTTP method. It tells the server what action the client wants to perform. The most common methods are GET POST PUT DELETE and PATCH - The headers. Used to pass additional information between the server and the client, such as authorization. - The body. The data sent to the server. In this article, we’re going to discuss how to use curl to interact with RESTful APIs. curl is a command-line utility for transferring data from or to a remote server. It is installed by default on macOS and most Linux distributions.' -- source: https://linuxize.com/post/curl-rest-api/ Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

New Raspberry Pi 4 model comes with a ton of RAM: 8GB
by Peter Reutemann 29 May '20

29 May '20

'Hot off the launch of an interchangeable camera system earlier this month, Raspberry Pi is introducing a new configuration of the Pi4: a model with a whopping 8GB of RAM. The new, highest-end config for the Pi 4 will run you $75. The 8GB version of the Raspberry Pi 4 has been long rumored, thanks to Raspberry Pi itself leaking the existence of an 8GB model. The blog post reveals that an 8GB model was always a possibility and says, "We were so enthusiastic about the idea that the non-existent product made its way into both the Beginner’s Guide and the compliance leaflet." The Raspberry Pi 4 launched last year with a faster SoC, more RAM, dual micro-HDMI, USB 3.0 support, and a USB-C charging port. In addition to the usual server and hobbyist uses, Raspberry Pi promoted performance on par with an "entry-level x86 PC" and dual-monitor desktop uses.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/05/new-raspberry-pi-4-model-comes-with… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Russian hackers are exploiting bug that gives control of US servers
by Peter Reutemann 29 May '20

29 May '20

'A Russian hacking group tied to power-grid attacks in Ukraine, the world’s most destructive data wiper worm, and other nefarious Kremlin operations is exploiting a vulnerability that allows it to take control of computers operated by the US government and its partners. In an advisory published on Thursday, the US National Security Agency said that the Sandworm group was actively exploiting a vulnerability in Exim, an open source mail transfer agent, or MTA, for Unix-based operating systems. Tracked as CVE-2019-10149, the critical bug makes it possible for an unauthenticated remote attacker to send specially crafted emails that execute commands with root privileges. With that, the attacker can install programs of their choosing, modify data, and create new accounts.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/05/russian-hackers-are-… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Digital Signage Moving To Linux?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 28 May '20

28 May '20

The Register regularly collects reports of computer-controlled public signage malfunctioning in an amusing way. In this latest instalment <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/05/27/bork/>, there is an interesting mention: The company went on to tell us that the units run Windows 10, but "we're about to upgrade all of our production machines to a custom Linux build to improve their stability and generally operate with more efficiency." One of the reader comments mentions a company called “Screenly”, which offers a product in both open-source and proprietary-paid forms.

1 0

meeting next month
by Peter Reutemann 28 May '20

28 May '20

Hi everyone Just got contacted by the timetabling people that look after the room bookings for WLUG (and also Python). No evening bookings are allowed till the campus fully operational again. At least the June meetings will be virtual ones again. Having said that, would you like to present something during June? Then please contact me (can be off-list). :-) Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Choosing 2FA authenticator apps can be hard. Ars did it so you don’t have to
by Peter Reutemann 28 May '20

28 May '20

'Last year, Sergio Caltagirone found himself in a tough spot. While traveling, his phone broke and stopped working completely. With no access to his Google and Microsoft authenticator apps, he lost access to two-factor authentication when he needed it most—when he was logging in from IP addresses not recognized by the 30 to 40 sites he had enrolled. “I had a whole bunch of sites [that] I had to go through a massively long account restoration process because I lost my 2FA,” said Caltagirone, who is senior VP of threat intelligence at security firm Dragos. “Every time, I had to contact customer service. I had different levels of requirements I had to go through for them to effectively disable 2FA on my account. Some required address verification. [For others,] I had to send a last bill. The number of those I went through was just insane.” The experience shows the double-edged sword of multi-factor authentication. Requiring users to enter a password that’s pseudorandomly generated every 30 seconds makes account takeovers significantly harder, even when an attacker has phished or otherwise obtained the password. But in the event that second factor (in this case, the “something you have,” that is, the phone) isn’t available, that same protection can block legitimate users from logging in for unacceptably long periods of time. When Caltagirone relayed his experience last September, a quick survey of the available consumer and small-business authenticators left much to be desired. Only a few of them made it possible to back up the unique cryptographic seeds that each phone uses to generate a time-based one-time password, or TOTP. Websites—including Google, Github, Facebook, and hundreds of others that implement the Time-Based One-Time Password Algorithm standard—require the temporary password to log in users who opt in to 2FA. The result? When your device was stolen, lost, or stopped working, you had to go through the same painful and time-consuming account recoveries Caltagirone did. The lack of a backup and recovery mechanism meant the only viable way to hedge against a device loss or malfunction was to print, scan, or photograph each QR code or the underlying Web link (for instance, http://USERNAME(a)salesforce.com/?secret=LZZIKRWX736EH2IQ&issuer=Slack) it represented. That was time consuming. Even worse, it was cumbersome and insecure to store them, particularly when traveling.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/05/choosing-2fa-authent… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

2 1

OpenSSH To Deprecate SHA-1 Logins Due To Security Risk
by Peter Reutemann 28 May '20

28 May '20

'OpenSSH, the most popular utility for connecting to and managing remote servers, has announced today plans to drop support for its SHA-1 authentication scheme. From a report: The OpenSSH team cited security concerns with the SHA-1 hashing algorithm, currently considered insecure. The algorithm was broken in a practical, real-world attack in February 2017, when Google cryptographers disclosed SHAttered, a technique that could make two different files appear as they had the same SHA-1 file signature. At the time, creating an SHA-1 collision was considered computationally expensive, and Google experts thought SHA-1 could still be used in practice for at least half a decade until the cost would go down. However, subsequent research released in May 2019 and in January 2020, detailed an updated methodology to cut down the cost of an SHA-1 chosen-prefix collision attack to under $110,000 and under $50,000, respectively. ' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/20/05/27/1830211 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

“Tech’s Volkswagen Moment”
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 27 May '20

27 May '20

Love the use of the phrase “Volkwagen moment”. A researcher investigating Trend Micro’s antimalware software <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/05/20/trend_accused_microsoft_cheating/> has discovered a routine in it which appears to be able to tell when the software is running within Microsoft’s WHQL test suite, so the code can behave one way during testing and certification, and a different way while running on ordinary punters’ PCs. Trend Micro’s response seems to be trying to have it both ways, on the one hand denying it is doing such a thing, on the other trying to cast aspersions on the researcher for going public without contacting them first. But as a reader comment <https://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/all/2020/05/20/trend_accused_microso…> points out, such a “responsible-disclosure” process is supposed to apply to security bugs. However, this appears to be a deliberate feature.

1 1

India Open Sources Its Contact-Tracing App
by Peter Reutemann 27 May '20

27 May '20

'India has released the source code of its contact-tracing app, Aarogya Setu, to the relief of privacy and security experts who have been advocating for this ever since the app launched in early April. >From a report: Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology Secretary Ajay Prakash Sawhney made the announcement on Tuesday, dubbing the move "opening the heart" of the Aarogya Setu app to allow engineers to inspect and tinker with the code. The app has amassed over 114 million users in less than two months -- an unprecedented scale globally. The source code of Aarogya Setu's Android app is live on GitHub with code of iOS and KaiOS apps slated to release in a "few weeks." Nearly 98% of the app's users are on the Android platform. Sawhney said the government will also offer cash prizes of up to $1,325 to security experts for identifying and reporting bugs and vulnerabilities. "Open-sourcing Aarogya Setu is a unique feat for India. No other government product anywhere in the world has been open-sourced at this scale," said Amitabh Kant, chief executive of government-run think-tank NITI Aayog, in a press conference today.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/05/26/1954212 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

New Android Vulnerability Strandhogg 2.0 Exploits User Trust
by Peter Reutemann 27 May '20

27 May '20

'A Norwegian infosec firm discovered a new Android vulnerability, which they've dubbed Strandhogg 2.0. Security firm Promon says "Strandhogg" is an old Norse strategy for coastline raids and abductions, and today's vulnerability is the "evil twin" of a similar one discovered in 2019. The original Strandhogg used an Android feature called taskAffinity to hijack applications -- by setting the taskAffinity of one of its activities to match the packageName of any other app, then setting allowTaskReparenting="true" in its own manifest, the Strandhogg app would be launched in place of the target app. Strandhogg's 1.0 major weakness was the need to declare taskAffinity in the Android Manifest. The Manifest is a plain XML file and must be included in the package hosted at the Play Store itself -- it can't simply be downloaded later, after the app is installed. This made it relatively simple to scan the Play store for apps with sketchy-looking taskAffinity declarations. Strandhogg 2.0 doesn't require any special settings in a package's Android Manifest -- meaning the attacking code doesn't need to be present on the Play Store to be scanned at all. Instead, the attacker can download the attack code later, once the trojan app or game is already installed on a user's device. In addition to the obvious credential-stealing attacks, Strandhogg can be used to trick users into escalating its privileges based on the trust they have for the apps it hijacks. For example, a user tapping Camera is asked if they want to grant it permission to access the camera and microphone -- if the user taps Yes, they've actually given those privileges to the malware app, not the Camera app it covered up on the screen. Strandhogg 2.0 affects all versions of Android prior to 10 -- which translates to roughly 90 percent of the Android userbase. Google rolled out a patch to close the Strandhogg 2.0 vulnerability, CVE-2020-0096, in May's Android Security Update. This is good news for Pixel users -- but as always, carriers and OEMs may delay those upgrades significantly.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/20/05/26/211241 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Linus Torvalds Dumps Intel For 32-core AMD Ryzen On His Personal PC
by Peter Reutemann 26 May '20

26 May '20

'Linus Torvalds released Linux 5.7 rc7 today, saying it "looks very normal... none of the fixes look like there's anything particularly scary going on." But then he added something else: [T]he biggest excitement this week for me was just that I upgraded my main machine, and for the first time in about 15 years, my desktop isn't Intel-based. No, I didn't switch to ARM yet, but I'm now rocking an AMD Threadripper 3970x. My 'allmodconfig' test builds are now three times faster than they used to be, which doesn't matter so much right now during the calming down period, but I will most definitely notice the upgrade during the next merge window. The Register writes: Torvalds didn't divulge any further details about his new rig, but the 3970x is quite the beast, boasting 32 cores and 64 threads at 3.7GHz with the ability to burst up to 4.5GHz, all built on TSMC's 7nm FinFET process... Torvalds has probably acquired a whole new PC, as the Threadripper range requires a sTRX4 socket and those debuted on motherboards from late 2019. Whatever he's running, it has more cores than Intel currently offers in a CPU designed for PCs. Even Chipzilla's high-end CoreX range tops out at 18 cores. AMD will be over the moon that such a high profile IT pro has adopted their kit and pointed to its performance. Or, as long-time Slashdot reader williamyf puts it, "Good endorsement for AMD, a PR blow for Intel."' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/20/05/25/020240 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

2 1

Thousands of Enterprise Systems Infected by New Blue Mockingbird Malware Gang
by Peter Reutemann 26 May '20

26 May '20

'Thousands of enterprise systems are believed to have been infected with a cryptocurrency-mining malware operated by a group tracked under the codename of Blue Mockingbird. From a report: Discovered earlier this month by malware analysts from cloud security firm Red Canary, the Blue Mockingbird group is believed to have been active since December 2019. Researchers say Blue Mockingbird attacks public-facing servers running ASP.NET apps that use the Telerik framework for their user interface (UI) component. Hackers exploit the CVE-2019-18935 vulnerability to plant a web shell on the attacked server. They then use a version of the Juicy Potato technique to gain admin-level access and modify server settings to obtain (re)boot persistence. Once they gain full access to a system, they download and install a version of XMRRig, a popular cryptocurrency mining app for the Monero (XMR) cryptocurrency.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/05/25/1913201 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

eBay Port Scans Visitors' Computers For Remote Access Programs
by Peter Reutemann 26 May '20

26 May '20

'When visiting the eBay.com site, a script will run that performs a local port scan of your computer to detect remote support and remote access applications. Many of these ports are related to remote access/remote support tools such as the Windows Remote Desktop, VNC, TeamViewer, Ammy Admin, and more. After learning about this, BleepingComputer conducted a test and can confirm that eBay.com is indeed performing a local port scan of 14 different ports when visiting the site.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/20/05/25/161246 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Open Source Security Report Finds Library-Induced Flaws in 70% of Applications
by Peter Reutemann 25 May '20

25 May '20

' The State of Software Security (SOSS): Open Source Edition "analyzed the component open source libraries across the Veracode platform database of 85,000 applications which includes 351,000 unique external libraries," reports TechRepublic. "Chris Eng, chief research officer at Veracode, said open source software has a surprising variety of flaws." "An application's attack surface is not limited to its own code and the code of explicitly included libraries, because those libraries have their own dependencies," he said. The study found that 70% of applications have a security flaw in an open source library on an initial scan. Other findings from the report: - The most commonly included libraries are present in over 75% of applications for each language. - 47% of those flawed libraries in applications are transitive. - More than 61% of flawed libraries in JavaScript contain vulnerabilities without corresponding common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVEs). - Fixing most library-introduced flaws can be done with a minor version upgrade. - Using any given PHP library has a greater than 50% chance of bringing a security flaw along with' -- source: https://developers.slashdot.org/story/20/05/23/2330244 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Chromium Project Finds 70% of Its Serious Security Bugs Are Memory Safety Problems
by Peter Reutemann 25 May '20

25 May '20

'"Around 70% of our serious security bugs are memory safety problems," the Chromium project announced this week. "Our next major project is to prevent such bugs at source." ZDNet reports: The percentage was compiled after Google engineers analyzed 912 security bugs fixed in the Chrome stable branch since 2015, bugs that had a "high" or "critical" severity rating. The number is identical to stats shared by Microsoft. Speaking at a security conference in February 2019, Microsoft engineers said that for the past 12 years, around 70% of all security updates for Microsoft products addressed memory safety vulnerabilities. Both companies are basically dealing with the same problem, namely that C and C++, the two predominant programming languages in their codebases, are "unsafe" languages.... Google says that since March 2019, 125 of the 130 Chrome vulnerabilities with a "critical" severity rating were memory corruption-related issues, showing that despite advances in fixing other bug classes, memory management is still a problem... Half of the 70% are use-after-free vulnerabilities, a type of security issue that arises from incorrect management of memory pointers (addresses), leaving doors open for attackers to attack Chrome's inner components... While software companies have tried before to fix C and C++'s memory management problems, Mozilla has been the one who made a breakthrough by sponsoring, promoting and heavily adopting the Rust programming language in Firefox... Microsoft is also heavily investing in exploring C and C++ alternativesâ¦ But this week, Google also announced similar plans as well... Going forward, Google says it plans to look into developing custom C++ libraries to use with Chrome's codebase, libraries that have better protections against memory-related bugs. The browser maker is also exploring the MiraclePtr project, which aims to turn "exploitable use-after-free bugs into non-security crashes with acceptable performance, memory, binary size and minimal stability impact." And last, but not least, Google also said it plans to explore using "safe" languages, where possible. Candidates include Rust, Swift, JavaScript, Kotlin, and Java.' -- source: https://developers.slashdot.org/story/20/05/24/1349204 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

'FOSS Responders' Want to Help Open-Source Groups Survive
by Peter Reutemann 25 May '20

25 May '20

'"Thanks to the coronavirus, technology events have been canceled left and right," writes ZDNet. "This, in turn, is damaging the finances of companies and groups that depend on these events." Some open-source groups, such as The Linux Foundation, can deal with it. Others aren't so fortunate. Some, such as Drupal Foundation, the Open Source Initiative (OSI), Open Source Matters (Joomla), and Ajv JSON Schema validator, are in real trouble. FOSS Responders is trying to help these and other groups and individuals... Nuritzi Sanchez, a FOSS Responder co-founder and GitLab senior open-source program manager, said: We "started out around mid-March as a response to COVID-19 event cancellations. It's a group of open source leaders from companies like Indeed, Facebook, Google, Red Hat, GitHub, GitLab, etc." They've set up a process to help both open-source individuals and organizations facing financial trouble. So far, Sanchez said, "organizations are the ones that have been reaching out most so far." They're also consolidating information on how to plan and execute virtual events and provide a place where people can look for and offer help. FOSS Responders has already had some success in raising donations. Alyssa Wright, Open Collective's director of social engineering, reports that it's raised funds from Indeed, Open Source Collective, Linux Fund, GitHub, Google, Sentry, Ethereum Foundation, and the Sloan Foundation. As a result "FOSS Responders is contributing over $100K to open-source organizations that are experiencing financial strain because of the COVID-19 pandemic." "The main focus of philanthropic efforts will be elsewhere, as they should be," noted LWN.net back in March, "but it is nice to see our community finding ways to help itself out internally."' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/05/23/2351224 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Another Patent Troll Sent Packing
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 22 May '20

22 May '20

<https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/05/21/gnome_foundation_settles_patent_tr…>: In an article comment on this story, [CEO Neil] McGovern said: "For those asking about payment, I can confirm we paid RPI and Leigh Rothschild a grand total of $0.00 for the settlement."

1 0

Check Point Releases Open-Source Fix For Common Linux Memory Corruption Security Hole
by Peter Reutemann 22 May '20

22 May '20

'For years, there's been a known security vulnerability hiding in the GNU C Library (glibc). This library, which is critical for Linux and many other operating systems and programs, had a dynamic memory management security hole that could be used for denial of service (DoS) attacks. Now, the security company, Check Point, has issued an open-source patch, which will make it much more difficult to exploit this memory allocation (malloc) problem. Check Point re-encountered this known problem when it discovered that so-called smart light bulbs could be used to hack into networks by exploiting unprotected single-linked-lists. The double-linked-list version of this problem had been fixed back in 2005 with Safe-Unlinking. But, the single-linked-list version, which is present in the memory primitive functions Fast-Bins and Thread Cache (TCache), remained vulnerable. Now, the fix is in for this problem. This new built-in security mechanism is called Safe-Linking. It protects malloc by signing its single-linked-list pointers with random numbers derived from Linux's Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) functionality. Combined with memory chunk alignment integrity checks, it protects the memory pointers from hijacking attempts and thus the system itself. The patch is now being integrated with the most common standard C library implementation, glibc. Safe-Linking will be released in glibc 2.32 in August 2020. It's already up and running in glibc's popular embedded counterpart: uClibc-NG.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/20/05/21/2018256 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Raspberry Pi 4 Beta Firmware Brings True USB Boot for High-Speed Storage, No microSD Required
by Peter Reutemann 22 May '20

22 May '20

'Owners of a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B single-board computer looking to make the most of the device's high-speed USB 3.0 connectivity by turning it into the device's primary storage can now do so — at least, if they're willing to help out with beta-testing the latest firmware. The Raspberry Pi 4 launched last year with a range of improvements over its predecessor, including the option of up to four times as much memory and high-speed USB 3.0 connectivity for peripherals, but with a couple of regressions: The loss of the ability, present in the Raspberry Pi 3 range, to boot from a network server or USB Mass Storage device.' -- source: https://www.hackster.io/news/raspberry-pi-4-beta-firmware-brings-true-usb-b… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Term Of The Week: “RPA”
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 21 May '20

21 May '20

Came across this phrase “robotic process automation” (RPA) <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/05/05/sba_rpa_ban/> which seems to be just another name for “web-scraping”. The site in question also offers APIs that can be used more directly to make requests and receive info. It’s just that the scraping works on a GUI designed for human users and human response times and data rates, so it creates a lot more overhead on the servers when being driven automatically with a lot of requests. Some outfits try to say that using such technology on their site is a violation of their terms of service. As one of the reader comments points out, if a company is banned from using a scraper bot that is batching its requests, and has to resort to hiring an army of humans, creating a concomitant swarm of separate login sessions, to enter the same data, the result can be even worse load on the servers.

1 1

Information Technology Asset Management (ITAM) Forum
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 21 May '20

21 May '20

Choice quote from the founder/chairman <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/05/20/itam_forum_launches/>: “One of the reasons people have been interested in ITAM in the past is because they are sick of software audits and want to learn to defend themselves against audits...” Given the way the proprietary licence agreements are worded, it’s hard to see how you can avoid this and still use the same software. Further: “Ten years ago, people thought everything would be compliant in the cloud. Although software compliance is less of an issue, costs certainly aren’t planned. It is as complex as ever. Whether it's on the desktop, in the data centre or in the cloud, you’re looking at roughly 35 per cent waste across all of those platforms.” That’s a pretty high figure. It means that, when you buy proprietary software, you are paying about a 50% markup on the supposed price.

1 0

Samsung Smart TV - blocking ads
by Peter Reutemann 21 May '20

21 May '20

Hi everyone Just came across this tip on reddit for blocking ads on your Samsung Smart TV: https://www.reddit.com/r/YouShouldKnow/comments/gn7fw5/ysk_if_you_own_a_sam… Blocking "ads.samsung.com" (or similar) on the router seems to be sufficient... The above link has more domains listed for Samsung and LG. Not that I'm connecting my TV to the internet in the first place... ;-) Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

List Of Spreadsheet Horror Stories
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 21 May '20

21 May '20

One of the things the European Spreadsheet Risks Interest Group likes to do is collect horror stories about the (mis)use of spreadsheets <http://eusprig.org/horror-stories.htm>. Found the link in a reader comment <https://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/all/2020/05/19/sap_analytics_cloud_o…> to this article <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/05/19/sap_analytics_cloud_office_integra…> about how software company SAP, creator of a complete business analytics suite, has felt compelled to include an interface to Microsoft Excel, just because that’s what most of its customers are familiar with.

4 5

SD Cards Version 8 Are Coming
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 20 May '20

20 May '20

According to the pic linked from this article <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/05/20/sd_8_for_sd_express/>, the new SD card spec uses PCIe instead of the previous “SD Bus” interface to achieve around ... is it 4GB/s, or 4Gb/s? The article says it both ways, while the diagram uses capital B throughout. The current fastest SD cards have two rows of pins; this spec adds a third row.

1 0

Linux distro review: Fedora Workstation 32
by Peter Reutemann 20 May '20

20 May '20

'Today's Linux distro review is one I've been wanting to do for quite some time—Fedora Workstation. Fedora is one of the heavyweight desktop distros of the Linux world, with a vibrant community and a strong presence at every open source convention I've ever attended. (Remember physically attending events? Ars remembers.) I never felt particularly drawn to Fedora myself, because it's a bleeding-edge distro—one targeted to the very newest software, possibly at the expense of stability. That's not what I personally want in an operating system—I fix broken things professionally; I'd prefer not to fix them personally any more than I have to. But as one of the few distros using the next-generation Wayland display server by default, Fedora made me very curious indeed. Although the screenshots taken throughout this review are of virtual machines, my first installation of Fedora Workstation (ever!) was bare metal, on the HP Dragonfly Elite G1.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/05/linux-distro-review-fedora-workstat… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

3 3

“To Fix Social Media, We Need To Introduce Digital Socialism”
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 20 May '20

20 May '20

Some may find this opinion piece <https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/fix-social-media-introduce-digita…> a bit too political, I don’t know. But he does mention some interesting open-source software projects, like the various “Fediverse” networks of decentralized social-media servers, and the “LibreSocial” project, which is trying to get rid of what little centralization still exists in those networks. Where I suppose it gets controversial is where he suggests that funding for such projects could be raised by taxing the existing Big Tech firms. But certainly many would agree the open-source projects he mentions are worth pursuing regardless.

1 0

OT: NZ COVID Tracer app
by Peter Reutemann 20 May '20

20 May '20

Hi everyone Just came through on my twitter feed: the NZ COVID Traver app is ready: https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and-conditions/covid-19-novel-… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

4 3

Microsoft Launches Windows Terminal 1.0, Unveils GPU Support and Linux GUI Apps in WSL
by Peter Reutemann 20 May '20

20 May '20

'At Build 2020 today, Microsoft gave developers a slew of new tools to coax them into using Windows over macOS or Linux. From a report: Windows Terminal is now out of preview for enterprises, and Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) 2 is getting support for GPUs, Linux GUI apps, and a simplified install experience. Microsoft even released a Windows Package Manager in preview. Windows 10 runs on 1 billion monthly active devices (PCs, Xbox One consoles, and HoloLens devices), making it a massive platform for developers to target. [...] Microsoft today released Windows Terminal 1.0, which means it is stable for enterprise use. The open source application features multiple tabs, panes, tear-away windows, shortcuts, Unicode and UTF-8 character support, emojis, ligatures, extensions, GPU-accelerated text rendering engine, and custom themes, styles, and configurations. Windows Terminal is for users of PowerShell, Cmd, WSL, and other command-line tools. Microsoft also unveiled WSL improvements today, including support for GPUs, Linux GUI apps, and a simplified install experience. WSL is a compatibility layer for running Linux binary executables natively on Windows. Microsoft first shared it was working on WSL 2 a year ago at Build 2019. WSL 2 is slated to arrive in the next major Windows 10 update coming later this month (brilliantly called the Windows 10 May 2020 Update), but it won't have these new features. In the second half of the year, WSL 2 will get support for GPU compute workflows. ' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/20/05/19/163224 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Chrome 83 Released With Enhanced Privacy Controls, Tab Groups Feature
by Peter Reutemann 20 May '20

20 May '20

'Google has released today version 83 of its Chrome web browser, one of the most feature-packed Chrome updates released since the browser's initial launch back in 2009. From a report: Today's v83 release includes a slew of new features. These include enhanced privacy controls, new settings for managing cookie files, a new Safety Check option, support for tab groups, new graphics for web form elements, a new API for detecting barcodes, and a new anti-XSS security feature, among many many others. The reason why Chrome 83 includes so many features is because Google canceled the Chrome 82 release due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. As a result, some of the Chrome 82 features were pushed into Chrome 83, while others were rescheduled for later this year.' -- source: https://slashdot.org/story/20/05/19/185244 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

OpenBSD 6.7 Released
by Peter Reutemann 20 May '20

20 May '20

'New OpenBSD version. String of good news. Some of the new changes, as highlighted by Phoronix, include: - FFS2 file-system improvements including using 64-bit timestamps and block numbers by default for new installs. - Support for the Raspberry Pi 4 on ARM64 while improving the Raspberry Pi 3 support too. Raspberry Pi 2/3 support has also improved for OpenBSD ARMv7. - Better support for Rockchip systems like the Pinebook Pro. - Various SMP improvements including better AMD SMT/Core/Package detection. - A wide variety of different hardware driver improvements, including Intel AX200 WiFi device support. - A FIDO driver introduced for FIDO/U2F security keys support. - Fixed handling of USB 2.0 devices when in use on different USB 3.0 controllers. - The PowerPC OpenBSD build switched over to Clang as its default code compiler. - Various dhclient fixes. - Various security improvements. ' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/05/19/1935202 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

meeting next Monday
by Peter Reutemann 20 May '20

20 May '20

Hi everyone For the meeting next week, the idea was to have a distro showdown. Since not everyone had experience yet with BigBlueButton, I would like to offer a trial run on Sunday night 8pm for the presenters. That should give them a chance to sort out video and audio. I'll send out a test link to the presenters off-list later on in the week. So far, I've got: - Ian - Ubuntu 20.04 - Tom - GhostBSD - Peter - Manjaro (never used it, but we can explore it together) Anyone else wanting to demo a distro? Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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ZFS versus RAID: Eight Ironwolf disks, two filesystems, one winner
by Peter Reutemann 19 May '20

19 May '20

'This has been a long while in the making—it's test results time. To truly understand the fundamentals of computer storage, it's important to explore the impact of various conventional RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks) topologies on performance. It's also important to understand what ZFS is and how it works. But at some point, people (particularly computer enthusiasts on the Internet) want numbers. First, a quick note: This testing, naturally, builds on those fundamentals. We're going to draw heavily on lessons learned as we explore ZFS topologies here. If you aren't yet entirely solid on the difference between pools and vdevs or what ashift and recordsize mean, we strongly recommend you revisit those explainers before diving into testing and results. And although everybody loves to see raw numbers, we urge an additional focus on how these figures relate to one another. All of our charts relate the performance of ZFS pool topologies at sizes from two to eight disks to the performance of a single disk. If you change the model of disk, your raw numbers will change accordingly—but for the most part, their relation to a single disk's performance will not.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/05/zfs-versus-raid-eight-ironwolf-disk… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Re: wlug Digest, Vol 347, Issue 17 - DishTV Box
by tom butz 19 May '20

19 May '20

Hi John, I've been using the cheap one (99 dollars) and it works well. They expect the hard-disk/memory stick to be formatted FAT32. The system could do that for you. The recording format is proprietary: it's .mpg, but if you play it back, there is an enormous amount of jitter every 5 seconds or so. There is no documentation, maybe because FreeView told them to keep it secret. The USB-connection is USB2 and supplies 500 mA of power: that should be enough for a memory stick but not an ordinary HD (they usually draw about 1000 mA). I've kept an old HD out of a notebook and use it with an adapter. It's slow but I've never lost anything. Maybe there are Y-connectors around that would bump the HD's power to 1000 mA, but I've not managed to find one. The system records in ordinary density and doesn't use a lot of space. As everything is so proprietary I haven't found a way to transfer/add parts to another HD/stick. Everything sits in 1 directory with a few subdirectories. Transferring the stuff to a computer would work if you filmed the TV-screen. You would then also be able to cut out the ads. I've read somewhere that there are devices that would record HDMI-output (which the DishTV provides) on a USB-device, so that should do the job. Gameplayers use something like that to record their moves... Just an aside: recording OnDemand movies: easy if you use 'simplescreenrecorder' (Windows and Linux). It creates an MKV-file you can edit. Tom.

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dish tv
by john 18 May '20

18 May '20

Hi all' Does anyone know the file format for the Dish TV sat box?? I have a replacement empty drive. No File allocation and wonder if the Dish box will format the disk to it's own system? Cheers John.

1 0

Slack Now Strips Location Data From Images
by Peter Reutemann 16 May '20

16 May '20

'Slack has started to strip uploaded photos of their metadata. What may seem like an inconsequential change to how the tech giant handles storing files on its servers, it will make it far more difficult to trace photos back to their original owners. From a report: Almost every digital file -- from documents on your computer to photos taken on your phone -- contains metadata. That's data about the file itself, such as how big the file is, when it was created, and by whom. Photos and videos often include the precise coordinates of where they were taken. But that can be a problem for higher-risk Slack users, like journalists and activists, who have to take greater security precautions to keep their sources safe. The metadata inside photos can out sources, deanonymize whistleblowers, or otherwise make it easier for unfriendly governments to target individuals. Even if a journalist removes the metadata from a photo before publishing, a copy of the photo -- with its metadata -- may remain on Slack's servers. Whether a hacker breaks in or a government demands the data, it can put sources at risk' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/20/05/11/2051209 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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ddr2 ram
by john 16 May '20

16 May '20

Some years ago, Windows Vista offered users who plugged in a USB flash drive the option of using the device as extra ram. I never actually tried this due to large amount of doubt about the functional ability of the claim. However I now have a number of Linux machines with DDR2 that I am unable to increase the physical memory of and wonder if this is a feasible option for these machines. Cheers John

5 6

Standby Fares For Those Flying Cloud
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 14 May '20

14 May '20

New concept: “Spot” VMs on cloud services <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/05/13/azure_spot_vms/>. These are offered for a very low price, but equally the jobs run at very low priority, and are liable to be evicted at short notice--as little as 30 seconds, according to the article. They are there to fill up unused capacity that cannot be sold at the regular rate. But as soon as a customer appears willing to pay that rate, out you go.

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3D File Manager As A Service
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 13 May '20

13 May '20

This company called Saganworks is offering a navigable 3D world for accessing your files stored on their servers <https://blocksandfiles.com/2020/05/12/saganworks-virtual-reality-rooms-for-…>. This sort of thing has been done lots of times before, famously on SGI workstations (and seen in the “Jurassic Park” movie). I suppose Microsoft Bob also counts, in a way. Quote: “We don’t live in a 2D world, yet that’s how we’ve been retaining knowledge and memories from the time of early cave dwellers until now.” Speak for yourself, non-command-line user. Yes, the name is a contrived acronym, and also a homage to Carl Sagan ...

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Ventoy USB Image Multi-Bootloader
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 13 May '20

13 May '20

Been watching this video <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYJ8du9TaxE> about a bootloader called “Ventoy”. Basically you install it onto a suitably-large USB stick, then you can just copy .iso image files of all the distros you want to try, and when you boot off that stick, it will offer a list of which OS image you want to start up. This even includes some Microsoft Windows installation images. Not everything is fully-compatible, though.

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Commercial Use Of Open Source: Good & Bad
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 13 May '20

13 May '20

<https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/05/12/open_source_bugs/> The good news: commercial adoption of Open Source is on the up: ... almost all (99 per cent) of the codebases examined have at least one open source component and that 70 per cent of the code overall is open source. That's about twice as much as the company's 2015 report, which found only 36 per cent of audited code was open source. The bad news: the companies concerned seem to have few or no procedures in place for keeping those open-source components up to date: Ninety-one percent of the audited applications had components that are either four years out of date or have exhibited no active development for two years. In 2019 – the time-period covered by the 2020 report – the percentage of codebases containing vulnerable components rose to 75 per cent, up from 60 per cent in 2018. They also seem to be a little bit careless about the legalities: The Synopsys report also found that 68 per cent of codebases exhibited an open source license conflict and that 33 per cent of them had no identifiable license.

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Eclipse Foundation Moving Base To Europe
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 13 May '20

13 May '20

The Eclipse Foundation is “re-domiciling the legal entity that controls The Eclipse Foundation from the US to Europe” <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/05/12/eclipse_moves_to_europe/>. Seems like Europe is already accounting for a much bigger chunk of contributions than the US: Membership dues will eventually be stated in Euros and a new version of the membership agreement will be coming down the line to reflect the foundation's new status as a Belgian entity. This reader comment <https://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/all/2020/05/12/eclipse_moves_to_euro…> gives some other examples of Open Source projects where either their organizations or the bulk of their contributors are not (or no longer) US-centric. E.g. The Document Foundation (which runs the LibreOffice project) is based in Berlin.

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Apache 101: 0-WordPress in 15 minutes
by Peter Reutemann 13 May '20

13 May '20

'Recently, we took a look at the Caddy Web server. Today, we're going to back things up a little bit and look at the A from the classic LAMP stack: the Apache Web server. Apache has a bad reputation for being old, crusty, and low-performance—but this idea mostly stems from the persistence of ancient guides that still show users how to set it up in extremely antiquated ways. In this guide, we're going to set up an Ubuntu 20.04 droplet at Digital Ocean with an Apache Web server set up properly and capable of handling serious levels of traffic.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/05/apache-101-0-wordpre… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Thunderbolt Bug Lets Hackers Steal Your Data in 'Five Minutes'
by Peter Reutemann 13 May '20

13 May '20

'A new set of flaws discovered in the Intel Thunderbolt port has put millions of machines at risk of local hacking. This new research by Eindhoven University's Bjorn Ruytenberg suggests that if a hacker gains access to a machine for just five minutes, they could bypass login methods to gain full data access. From a report: Thunderbolt ports are present in machines with Windows, Linux, and macOS. So, that covers a lot of computers. Ruytenberg said all Thunderbolt versions and systems shipped between 2011 to 2020 are affected and no software patch can fix these vulnerabilities. So, Intel would need to redesign silicon in order to fix these flaws. There's not much you can do here. However, with open-source software called Thunderspy, developed by Ruytenberg and their team, you can check if you're affected by the Thunderbolt bug.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/20/05/11/1450208 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

2 2

Microsoft Wants Notebooks
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 12 May '20

12 May '20

One of the plans announced for Microsoft’s Visual Studio Code development environment <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/05/11/visual_studio_code_145_released/> is “notebooks” à la Jupyter: The team is also working on native support for notebooks, though rather than just support Jupyter notebooks (for which support already exists as part of the Python tools) the intention is to "build a Notebook solution that is unbiased and supports different styles of Notebooks". Of course, Jupyter itself already allows you to use other programming languages, not just Python. By the way, interesting to note that Jupyter is becoming the recognized reference for the notebook paradigm, as opposed to Mathematica which is where the idea originated.

1 0

ZFS 101—Understanding ZFS storage and performance
by Peter Reutemann 11 May '20

11 May '20

'As we all enter month three of the COVID-19 pandemic and look for new projects to keep us engaged (read: sane), can we interest you in learning the fundamentals of computer storage? Quietly this spring, we've already gone over some necessary basics like how to test the speed of your disks and what the heck RAID is. In the second of those stories, we even promised a follow-up exploring the performance of various multiple-disk topologies in ZFS, the next-gen filesystem you have heard about because of its appearances everywhere from Apple to Ubuntu. Well, today is the day to explore, ZFS-curious readers. Just know up front that in the understated words of OpenZFS developer Matt Ahrens, "it's really complicated." But before we get to the numbers—and they are coming, I promise!—for all the ways you can shape eight disks' worth of ZFS, we need to talk about how ZFS stores your data on-disk in the first place.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/05/zfs-101-understandin… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

2 1

Which Linux Desktop Environment is the Best?
by Peter Reutemann 11 May '20

11 May '20

'Tom's Hardware "put five of the most popular desktop environments up against each other in a no-holds-barred, seven-round face-off. We've rated GNOME, KDE, Cinnamon, Awesome and Regolith on a 10-point scale based on Installation, Applications, User Experience, User Documentation, Performance, Extensions and Configurability." It's a good read, with a detailed and thoughtful 3,700-word analysis, especially about memory performance: When you use the standard desktops, Gnome and KDE, you will likely notice that you are using a lot of memory... If you haven't noticed yet, try running htop in a separate window while you try out your choices. You should see a substantial difference with Awesome, i3 and, if you are elite, dwm. The difference in memory footprint is staggering when you start measuring. GNOME starts with somewhere in the region of 3GB at boot. This can be trimmed down by serious tweaking, but not very much. In comparison, the Awesome window manager weighs in at around 600MB... You can put a lot of eye candy and daemons before you weigh down your system as much as the others... Getting the advantage comes at a cost, though: you need to learn a few new habits to use Awesome desktop environment. Among GNOME, KDE, and Cinnamon, the article ultimately calls KDE "the most polished... decorative and versatile of the bunch. This comes at a cost, though." Cinnamon has the best balance between extensions and ease of use, while it is also fast and responsive. At the same time, it is not that heavy on resources. You can also add a wide range of extensions in the shape of widgets that send you ongoing and updated information. Regolith requires a bit more training, but it does set itself up for you so you can continue as you did with GNOME. Adding extensions and other gadgets is a bit more tricky, however... With Awesome you have to set up and practice to use it! It's easily the hardest in the group to get started with. When you are up and running, Awesome does deliver the most benefits from a resource point of view... Overall Winner: Cinnamon...because of its strong combination of user experience, performance and customization. ' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/05/10/1552222 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Source Code For Contact-Tracing Apps
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 10 May '20

10 May '20

The UK and Australia have both published the source code for their contact-tracing apps on GitHub <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/05/09/coronavirus_tracing_app_source_cod…>. And of course a lot of people are going over them with a fine-toothed comb. Some are even suggesting that one for Apple’s platform, for example, might be violating the company’s rules on using Bluetooth while running in the background. It’s hard to see how these apps won’t be a big battery drain anyway. Maybe the NZ government is wise not to make this sort of thing a priority for now.

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Do Working-From-Home Developers Risk Burning Out?
by Peter Reutemann 10 May '20

10 May '20

'"Software developers, like everyone else, have had to transition to a work-from-home world," writes InfoWorld. For the users of GitHub, the COVID-19 pandemic has meant changes in work cadence and collaboration, along with an increased risk of burnout, a GitHub study of usage patterns on the Microsoft-owned code sharing site has found." In an "Octoverse spotlight" analysis published May 6, 2020, GitHub compared the first three months of 2020 with the first three months of 2019... GitHub said its analysis shows that developers have been resilient to the change wrought by COVID-19, with activity holding consistent or increasing through the crisis. But their analysis also found: - Developers are working longer, by "up to an hour per day," seven days a week. - Slightly more pushes, pull requests, reviewed pull requests, and commented issues. - More collaboration on open source projects, and less time to merge pull requests into open source projects.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/05/09/0158217 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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3D Printed N95 Montana Mask Design Released Under GPLv3
by Peter Reutemann 10 May '20

10 May '20

'Since the COVID-19 pandemic has made Personal Protective Equipment worth it's weight in gold, Makers have been trying to help bridge the gap. While sewn masks have been the most common solution, the 3D printing community has been pitching in as well. The Montana Mask has been one of the most popular designs... Thursday, the group Make the Masks announced that the design files and STLs to print the mask have been released under the GNU General Public License v3, allowing anyone to print, sell, remix or improve the design, as long as they conform to the license. Importantly, the GPLv3 includes an international non-exclusive patent grant, meaning that even if the inventors decide to apply for a patent, it will not restrict anyone from using the design.' -- source: https://science.slashdot.org/story/20/05/09/1859238 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Where Does Ad Money Go?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 08 May '20

08 May '20

The accounting firm PwC (does that still stand for “Price Waterhouse Coopers”?) has done a study <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/05/07/ad_tech_fees_sucked/> of the online ad market, to see where all the money is going. Turns out only about half the money spent by advertisers makes it all the way to the publishers, with the rest siphoned off by various intermediaries along the way (not all of them legitimate), and 15% could not be accounted for at all. Much of this trading is now done “programmatically”, between automated systems, rather than by direct agreements between humans. And these systems are more complex (i.e. “having more stages where a percentage cut can be taken”) than they need to be.

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Inkscape Approaches Version 1.0
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 08 May '20

08 May '20

Inkscape v1.0 is tentatively due to be released on May 1st. Here <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/14/16_years_inkscape_v1/> is a backgrounder on how development has been progressing. There seems to be this assumption that Apple users are important: Mac support is hugely important, thanks to the wide use of Macs in the artistic and designer community. while on the other hand, They know that macOS usage has been very small. The new version is using GTK+3, and the UI is more customizable than before. The command shell has also been improved. Finally: Is the open-source business model, or lack of it, holding back Inkscape? "We would advance much faster with even one or two full-time people," said Jeanmougin. "That has been some frustration because we only rely on donations. We get much less than what we would need to hire people."

1 2

MPA and Amazon Ask GitHub To Suspend Kodi Add-On Developer's Account
by Peter Reutemann 08 May '20

08 May '20

'The MPA, MPA-Canada, and Amazon have filed a request with Github requesting that a Kodi add-on developer's account be deleted from the platform. Citing a copyright case and a permanent injunction handed down by Canada's Federal Court, the content companies claim that the account is still being used to infringe their rights. Github has left the account intact, however. TorrentFreak reports: In February 2018, a developer known online as 'Blamo' (aka 'Mr. Blamo') revealed that he, in common with several of his counterparts, had been threatened by content companies. From there the trail went cold but according to a complaint filed against Github this week, legal action in Canada followed. On September 7, 2018, a dozen companies including the studios of the MPA/MPA-Canada plus Amazon and Netflix launched a copyright infringement lawsuit at Canada's Federal Court against an individual "doing business" as Mr. Blamo. "In the context of that action, our clients alleged that [Blamo] notably developed, hosted, promoted and distributed infringing add-ons for the Kodi media center, which provided unauthorized access to motion pictures and television content for which the copyright is owned by our clients," the MPA writes. According to Federal Court records, Blamo did not mount any kind of defense so as a result, the matter was decided in his absence. On January 15, 2019, the Federal Court handed down a final judgment, including a declaration of infringement and a permanent injunction. "The permanent injunction enjoins and restrains [Blamo] from, inter alia, hosting, distributing or promoting infringing Kodi add-ons and their repositories, including notably the 'Blamo' repository and the "Chocolate Salty Balls' infringing add-ons," the MPA adds. The problem here is that, according to the MPA and associated companies, Blamo has a Github account where it is claimed he continues to "host and distribute infringing Kodi add-ons and their repository, including notably the Chocolate Salty Balls infringing add-on and the Blamo repository." This, the MPA says, amounts to contempt of court. What's particularly interesting here, however, is that the MPA isn't asking for the specified URLs to be deleted. Instead, it asks for Blamo's entire Github account to be deactivated instead.' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/20/05/07/2018227 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Apple IOS XML Bug
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 08 May '20

08 May '20

>From <https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2020/05/ios_xml_bug.html>: So Siguza's exploit -- which granted an app full access to the entire file system, and more - uses malformed XML comments constructed in a way that one of iOS's XML parsers sees its declaration of entitlements one way, and another XML parser sees it another way. The XML parser used to check whether an application should be allowed to launch doesn't see the fishy entitlements because it thinks they're inside a comment. The XML parser used to determine whether an already running application has permission to do things that require entitlements sees the fishy entitlements and grants permission. Further: Implementing 4 different parsers is just asking for trouble, and the "fix" is of the crappiest sort, bolting on more crap to check they're doing the right thing in this single case. None of this is encouraging. Conway’s Law comes to mind: “any piece of software reflects the organizational structure that produced it”. 3 different XML parsers sounds like 3 different groups working on those parts of the OS, while the addition of a fourth to block the hole suggests that nobody with any responsibility for security was able to get through to any of those groups to fix their parsing.

1 0

Microsoft's GitHub Account Allegedly Hacked, 500GB Stolen
by Peter Reutemann 08 May '20

08 May '20

'A hacker claims to have stolen over 500GB of data from Microsoft's private GitHub repositories, BleepingComputer reports. From the report: This evening, a hacker going by the name Shiny Hunters contacted BleepingComputer to tell us they had hacked into the Microsoft GitHub account, gaining full access to the software giant's 'Private' repositories. The individual told us that they then downloaded 500GB of private projects and initially planned on selling it, but has now decided to leak it for free. Based on the file stamps in the leaked files, the breach may have occurred on March 28th, 2020.' -- source: https://developers.slashdot.org/story/20/05/07/1850248 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

2 1

Google Authenticator's First Android Update in Years Lets You Move Your Account Between Devices
by Peter Reutemann 08 May '20

08 May '20

'Google Authenticator, the company's code-based authentication app, has received its first update in three years, updating the app's interface for larger screens with more modern aspect ratios and delivering one of the platform's most-needed features. From a report: The Android version was last updated on August 22nd, 2017, while the iOS one was updated around a year ago to adjust it for iPhone X screens. Now, for the first time, Authenticator users will be able to easily transfer their account from one device to another without needing to manually transfer each code or disable and reenable two-factor authentication (2FA) on each account. The update introduces this feature through an import / export tool that lets you choose which accounts to include and transfer using a single QR code scan. It's a feature that competitor Authy has provided for quite some time, so it's refreshing to see it come to Authenticator, even if it's years late.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/05/07/1450227 Finally... Could have used that a while ago... Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Caddy offers TLS, HTTPS, and more in one dependency-free Go Web server
by Peter Reutemann 07 May '20

07 May '20

'Yesterday, the Caddy Web server reached an important milestone, with its 2.0.0 release. Caddy bills itself as "The Ultimate Server," with no dependencies, automatic TLS certificate obtainment and renewal, and much smaller configuration files than Apache or Nginx. Senior Technology Editor Lee Hutchinson expressed both curiosity about Caddy and his own personal inertia in the Ars slack: Caddy is an app where every time i see it or think of it i say “I should mess with it, it looks neat” and then I never do. I’ve gotten so enmeshed in my haproxy - varnish - nginx stack that breaking out feels like more trouble than it’s worth. I hadn't ever heard of Caddy until Lee mentioned it, but I know a call to action when I hear one.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/05/caddy-offers-tls-https-and-more-in-… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

2 1

Firefox 76 Arrives With Password Management and Zoom Improvements
by Peter Reutemann 06 May '20

06 May '20

'Mozilla today launched Firefox 76 for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Firefox 76 includes new Firefox Lockwise password functionality, Zoom improvements, and a handful of developer features. From a report: Lockwise, the password management service formerly known as Firefox Lockbox, is getting smarter. The Firefox feature already lets you generate, manage, and protect all those passwords for streaming services, grocery deliveries, and anything else that helps during the pandemic. If you share your device with family or roommates, Lockwise in Firefox 76 can now protect your saved passwords. When you try to view or copy a password from your "Logins and Passwords" page, you will be prompted for your device's account password. [...] Firefox 76 adds support for Audio Worklets, which run custom JavaScript audio processing code for applications like VR and gaming on the web. Unlike their predecessor, ScriptProcessorNode, worklets run off the main thread in a similar way to web workers. Mozilla also notes Audio Worklets are "being adopted by some of your favorite software programs." The company specifically called out Zoom, which has become a phenomenon of its own during the pandemic. In short, you now join Zoom calls in Firefox without having to download or install the Zoom client.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/05/05/160252 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Xiaomi Releases Browser Update Amid Accusations It Collects Private Browsing Data
by Peter Reutemann 06 May '20

06 May '20

'Xiaomi released software updates for its browser apps on Monday amid fresh accusations it's been collecting private data from people who use its phones and browser apps. CNET reports: In a blog post, Xiaomi said the update will allow you to switch off aggregated data collection while on incognito mode in its three browser apps: Mi Browser, Mi Browser Pro, and Mint Browser. The software update was rolled out on Google Play. "We believe this functionality, in combination with our approach of maintaining aggregated data in non-identifiable form, goes beyond any legal requirements and demonstrates our company's commitment to user privacy," the company said in its post. The release of the software update comes after a Forbes report published last Thursday raised concerns about the Chinese phone-maker's use of private data. It suggested Xiaomi may be collecting data on the websites users visit as well as granular information about apps used and files opened on devices. In response to the report, Xiaomi defended its practices last week saying it's "fully compliant with user privacy protection laws and regulations in the countries and regions we operate in.' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/20/05/05/2013244 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Ubuntu 20.04: Welcome to the future, Linux LTS disciples
by Peter Reutemann 05 May '20

05 May '20

'This is most definitely the strangest spring in a very long time, with all sorts of event and hardware delays or outright cancellations. But one thing that has arrived right on schedule? The latest version of Ubuntu Linux. Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal Fossa, as this release is known) is a Long Term Support (LTS) release, which means Ubuntu's parent company, Canonical, will provide support through 2025. The LTS releases are what Canonical calls "enterprise grade," and these tend to be conservative when it comes to adopting new technologies. The interim releases, like last year's Ubuntu 19.10, are instead where the company tends to experiment. Perhaps not surprisingly, Canonical estimates that 95 percent of all Ubuntu installations are LTS releases. Which is to say, this is a big update that the bulk of Ubuntu's user base will be upgrading to eventually. The good news for Ubuntu fans is that 20.04 has been a fantastic release in our testing. This update has been very solid in day-to-day use, and it still manages to (optionally!) include support for some cutting-edge new features, like the beginnings of a tool to manage ZFS snapshots. There's also a major kernel bump, and considerable work has gone into improving and polishing the default Yaru theme. That's a running theme in Ubuntu, where much of what makes it great are small changes and new features that individually might not be remarkable but all together create a system that is fast, stable, and hard to beat. The security improvements offered this time around almost alone make Ubuntu 20.04 a must-have upgrade. But the Ubuntu 20.04 update has plenty of new stuff for all the various Ubuntu flavors as well. So even if the default GNOME desktop doesn't excite you, there's big news in Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu Mate, and more. There's also some good news for Raspberry Pi users, who get first-class support for the Pi 4 platform out of the box (and when I say first class, I mean, frankly, better than the official Pi distro, Raspian).' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/05/ubuntu-20-04-welcome… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

2 1

Academics Turn PC Power Units Into Speakers To Leak Secrets From Air-Gapped Systems
by Peter Reutemann 05 May '20

05 May '20

'Academics from an Israeli university have published new research last week showing how an attacker could turn a computer's power supply unit into a rudimentary speaker that can secretly transmit data from an infected host using audio waves. From a report: The technique, named POWER-SUPPLaY, is the work of Mordechai Guri, the head of R&D at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, in Israel. Over the last half-decade, Guri has been pioneering research into new covert data exfiltration channels. The techniques Guri has been developing can be used for stealing data through unconventional means. Guri has been developing these techniques specifically for extracting data from air-gapped systems -- computers isolated on local networks with no internet access. Such computers are often used on government or corporate networks to store sensitive data, such as classified files or intellectual property. Air-gapped systems are protected by several layers of defenses, on top of the "air gap," and you need novel data transmission techniques to go around these defenses. For example, some air-gapped systems don't have speakers, because it's been proven in the past that speakers could be abused to leak information from a secure system using inaudible sound waves.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/20/05/04/176208 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Google Purged Almost 1,000 Abusive 'Creeperware' Apps. Now Some Are Coming Back.
by Peter Reutemann 05 May '20

05 May '20

'In June 2019, a group of cybersecurity researchers notified Google of more than 1,000 potentially malicious apps on the company's Play Store that can be used to surveil, monitor, and harass users. Their findings, which have not previously been reported, eventually led to one of the largest ever mass removals of Android apps. Less than a year later, there are signs that the "creeperware," as the researchers called it, is returning. From a report: The label comprises a broad category of abusable apps, including tools for spying, spoofing phone numbers, and secretly recording video and audio. Some of those programs banned by Google have now rebranded or added disclaimers and returned to the Play Store. Meanwhile, new programs with overtly abusive purposes have slipped through the company's automated monitoring systems. The initial 1,095 apps flagged by researchers came in a variety of forms. Catch Cheating Spouse and its ilk offered stalkerware packages: Once installed on a victim's phone, the user could track the device's location, read messages, listen to calls, remotely record through the microphone, or log passwords. Many of the programs had innocuous names but hostile purposes. Spoof Text Message, for example, advertised itself with a video using the tagline "Don't like your buddy's girlfriend? Well, break them up!" Others, like GirlFriend Cell Tracker, were more explicit in their motivation. "When we reported these apps to Google initially, it felt like they didn't really know what to do with them," said Kevin Roundy, the technical director of NortonLifeLock's research group, and one of the lead members of the team that uncovered the malicious apps last June.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/05/04/1528219 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Hackers Breach LineageOS Servers Via Unpatched Vulnerability
by Peter Reutemann 05 May '20

05 May '20

'Hackers have gained access to the core infrastructure of LineageOS, a mobile operating system based on Android, used for smartphones, tablets, and set-top boxes. The intrusion took place on Saturday night at around 8 pm (US Pacific coast), and was detected before the attackers could do any harm, the LineageOS team said in a statement published less than three hours after the incident. The LineageOS team said the operating system's source code was unaffected, and so were any operating system builds, which had been already paused since April 30, because of an unrelated issue. Signing keys, used to authenticate official OS distributions, were also unaffected, as these hosts were stored separately from the LineageOS main infrastructure. LineageOS developers said the hack took place after the attacker used an unpatched vulnerability to breach its Salt installation.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/20/05/04/0341202 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

What Keeps Developers Happy? Contributing to Open Source
by Peter Reutemann 04 May '20

04 May '20

'This week long-time open source advocate Matt Asay warned employers that the best way to keep their developers happy was to let them contribute to open source projects: SlashData recently surveyed over 16,000 developers to see what makes them tick... what they care about. The data is collected in SlashData's State of the Developer Nation, though let me give you the tl;dr: 59% of developers contribute to open source software today. Why do they contribute? The top two reasons are: To improve coding skills and because they believe in open source. Want to keep those developers happy and employed with you? Let them contribute... [Y]our employees want to contribute both code and knowledge — they want to be part of something. Talking to Bert Hubert, founder of PowerDNS, a supplier of open source DNS software, services, and support, he stressed that an open source project must be "a fun place where people feel that they are learning things, that they're contributing things, that they're being valued." Perhaps not surprisingly, these are the same elements developers expect from their employers. By making open source a valued part of workplace expectations, employers tick both boxes. Is it an absolute requirement that you encourage your developers to contribute to open source projects? No. But many of your best developers will chafe at keeping their talents locked up behind the firewall, and other developers simply won't apply if you have a reputation for being an open source scrooge. The article was written by Matt Asay, a former COO of Canonical now working at AWS. (Right before becoming Canonical's COO, Matt answered questions from Slashdot readers). The survey he cites also found that out of 17,000 developers they talked to, just 3% said they were paid to contribute to open source. The other 97% contributed for free.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/05/03/1746244 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

2 1

Copyleft and the Cloud: Where Do We Go From Here?
by Peter Reutemann 04 May '20

04 May '20

'Free software evangelist Jeremy Allison - Sam (Slashdot reader #8,157) is a co-creator on the Samba project, a re-implementation of SMB/CIFS networking protocol, and he also works in Google's Open Source Programs Office. Now he shares his presentation at the Software Freedom Conservancy's "International Copyleft Conference." He writes: The Samba project has traditionally been one of the strongest proponents of Copyleft licensing and Free Software. However, in the Corporate Cloud-first world we find ourselves, traditional enforcement mechanisms have not been effective. How do we achieve the goals of the Free Software movement in this new world and how do we need to change what we're doing to be successful ? Traditional license enforcement doesn't seem to work well in the Cloud and for the modern software environment we find ourselves. In order to achieve the world of Free Software available for all I think we need to change our approach. Both GPLv3 and the AGPL have been rejected soundly by most developers. I would argue that we need a new way to inspire developers to adopt Free Software goals and principles, as depending on licensing has failed as licensing itself has fractured. Communication and collaboration are key to this. Stand-alone software is essentially useless. Software interoperability and published protocol and communication definitions are essential to build a freedom valuing software industry for the future The talk's title? "Copyleft and the Cloud: Where do we go from here?"' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/05/02/180237 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Google's reCAPTCHA Is Being Used To Hide Phishing Pages
by Peter Reutemann 04 May '20

04 May '20

'New research from Barracuda Networks has revealed that cyber-criminals are increasingly using official reCAPTCHA walls to disguise malicious content from email security systems and trick unsuspecting users... [S]ophisticated scammers are beginning to use the Google-owned service to prevent automated URL analysis systems from accessing the actual content of phishing pages, and to make phishing sites more believable in the eyes of the victim, Barracuda Networks warned. In fact, the security solutions provider observed a single phishing campaign that sent out 128,000 emails to a variety of organizations and employees using reCAPTCHA walls to conceal fake Microsoft log-in pages. This campaign used the lure of a voicemail receipt to fool users into solving the reCAPTCHA wall before being redirected to the malicious page, with any log-in info entered then sent straight to the scammers.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/05/03/1613229 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Join me in taking action
by Roderick Aldridge 01 May '20

01 May '20

I just took part in an Electronic Frontier Foundation campaign titled "Help Stop the Sale of Public Interest Registry to a Private Equity Firm". Will you join me? Take action here: https://act.eff.org/action/help-stop-the-sale-of-public-interest-registry-t… In case you haven't seen this. I expect a lot of FOSS people and organisations are at risk. Roderick

5 6

ISP
by john 01 May '20

01 May '20

Hi All, I am convinced that my ISP has reduced the throttle on my UFB. They wrote and told me that due to the virus I was to get unlimited use (I had nearly 2TB of rollover) I used to think it a lucky day if I got 1.5MB but recently speeds over up to 3 MB are common. Cheers John

2 1

Xiaomi Found Recording 'Private' Web and Phone Use, Researchers Claim
by Peter Reutemann 01 May '20

01 May '20

'According to an exclusive report from Forbes, cybersecurity researcher Gabi Cirlig discovered that his Xiaomi Redmi Note 8 smartphone was watching much of what he was doing and sending that data to remote servers hosted by Chinese tech giant Alibaba, which were ostensibly rented by Xiaomi. From the report: The seasoned cybersecurity researcher found a worrying amount of his behavior was being tracked, whilst various kinds of device data were also being harvested, leaving Cirlig spooked that his identity and his private life was being exposed to the Chinese company. When he looked around the Web on the device's default Xiaomi browser, it recorded all the websites he visited, including search engine queries whether with Google or the privacy-focused DuckDuckGo, and every item viewed on a news feed feature of the Xiaomi software. That tracking appeared to be happening even if he used the supposedly private "incognito" mode. The device was also recording what folders he opened and to which screens he swiped, including the status bar and the settings page. All of the data was being packaged up and sent to remote servers in Singapore and Russia, though the Web domains they hosted were registered in Beijing. Meanwhile, at Forbes' request, cybersecurity researcher Andrew Tierney investigated further. He also found browsers shipped by Xiaomi on Google Play -- Mi Browser Pro and the Mint Browser -- were collecting the same data. Together, they have more than 15 million downloads, according to Google Play statistics. Cirlig thinks that the problems affect many more models than the one he tested. In response to the findings, Xiaomi said, "The research claims are untrue," and "Privacy and security is of top concern," adding that it "strictly follows and is fully compliant with local laws and regulations on user data privacy matters." A spokesperson did however confirm it was collecting browsing data, claiming the info was anonymized and users had consented to it. Cirlig and Tierney pointed out that Xiaomi "was also collecting data about the phone, including unique numbers for identifying the specific device and Android version," reports Forbes. "Cirlig said such 'metadata' could 'easily be correlated with an actual human behind the screen.'" The researchers also say they found their Xiaomi apps to be sending data to domains that appeared to reference Sensor Analytics, which Xiaomi says "provides a data analysis solution for Xiaomi," adding that that the collected anonymous data "are stored on Xiaomi's own servers and will not be shared with Sensor Analytics, or any other third-party companies."' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/20/04/30/237249 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Virtualization on the Linux desktop—Gnome Boxes vs virt-manager
by Peter Reutemann 01 May '20

01 May '20

'In the comments of our recent GhostBSD review, reader Enduzzer casually mentioned trying out the distribution in a Gnome Boxes VM. Linux's Kernel Virtual Machine has been a mainstay of my own system administration for more than a decade—but I use virt-manager, an excellent and deeply sysadmin-ish graphical management interface. I generally describe virt-manager as "simple"—and in many ways it's much simpler than Boxes is—but there are different ways to interpret simplicity.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/04/virtualization-on-the-linux-desktop… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Distro Showdown May
by tom butz 01 May '20

01 May '20

I have just checked microphone/camera on my Toshiba laptop running Mint 19.3: they're both ok for a remote meeting. What I could do is talk about the various Linuxes I have used, starting witn Tiny Linux, then Arch-Linux, then OpenBSD, then FreeBSD and finally Mint as well as Ubuntu14 as well as Sparky Linux. Maybe also a bit about my trials with GhostBSD. Why am I using more than 1? Mint 19.3 is the workhorse, Sparky does movies using conventional openshot as well as avidemux and Ubuntu 14 supports USB-tethering out of the box. USB-tethering is way faster than the alternatives and also very secure (as long as no-one nicks your phone). Tom Butz.

2 1

Google Play has been spreading advanced Android malware for years
by Peter Reutemann 01 May '20

01 May '20

'Hackers have been using Google Play for years to distribute an unusually advanced backdoor capable of stealing a wide range of sensitive data, researchers said on Tuesday. Researchers from security firm Kaspersky Lab have recovered at least eight Google Play apps that date back to 2018, a Kaspersky Lab representative said, but based on archive searches and other methods, the researchers believe malicious apps from the same advanced group seeded Google’s official market since at least 2016. Google removed recent versions of the malware shortly after the researchers from Kaspersky, and earlier fellow security firm Dr. Web, reported them. Apps from earlier were already removed, and it’s not clear what prompted the move. Third-party markets have also hosted the backdoored apps, and many of them remain available. Command-and-control domains were registered as early as 2015, raising the possibility the operation goes back earlier than 2016. Code in the malware and command servers it connects to contain several overlaps with a known hacking group dubbed OceanLotus (aka APT32, APT-C-00, and SeaLotus), leading researchers to believe the apps are the work of that advanced group.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/04/sophisticated-androi… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Fairphone 3 Now Available With 'de-Googled' Android /e/OS
by Peter Reutemann 01 May '20

01 May '20

'Fairphone, the European manufacturer of mobile phones with a reduced environmental impact, has announced a partnership to offer /e/OS, the most "de-Googled" and pro-privacy Android OS, on their latest model Fairphone 3. An interesting move that reminds me of the recent introduction of the Google-free Huawei Mate 30. A pithy explainer of its "privacy by design ecosystem" -- and the point of "Android without Google" -- further notes: "We have removed many pieces of code that send your personal data to remote servers without your consent. We don't scan your data in your phone or in your cloud space, and we don't track your location a hundred times a day or collect what you're doing with your apps." According to TechCrunch, the e/OS variant of the Firephone 3 ships from May 6, priced at just under 480 euros -- "a 30 euro premium on the Googley flavor of Android you get on the standard Fairphone 3." The report adds that existing owners of the Fairphone 3 can manually install /e/OS gratis via an installer on its website.' -- source: https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/20/04/29/2131230 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Raspberry Pi Gains a New 12.3-Megapixel Camera and Interchangeable Lenses
by Peter Reutemann 01 May '20

01 May '20

'The Raspberry Pi can be used for all sorts of maker projects, and the foundation has offered camera modules for it since 2013, adding vision-related functionality. The first module was a modest 5-megapixel affair that was eventually replaced by an 8-megapixel Sony sensor four years ago. Today, sees the arrival of a new much higher 12.3 megapixel quality camera, and a range of interchangeable lenses. >From a report: The new camera is compatible with all Raspberry Pi models -- from Pi 1 Model B onwards -- with the exception of early Pi Zero boards. The camera is available to buy from today for $50.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/04/30/1554232 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Predictive Text Patent Troll Tries To Shake Down Wikipedia
by Peter Reutemann 30 Apr '20

30 Apr '20

'WordLogic (patent troll) claims it has the rights of the concept of predictive text writing and went after the Wikimedia foundation. WordLogic offered a "discounted, lump sum fee of $30,000 in exchange for a paid-up one-time license," an easy win they thought, but Wikimedia fought back. "Wikimedia notes that (1) WordLogic's patents are invalid due to prior art, (2) that they are invalid for not covering patentable subject matter, and (3) that anyway, it doesn't even infringe on the patents if they were valid," reports Techdirt. Now we are waiting to see what will happen. Will the patent troll desist, or will it push forward?' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/04/29/216210 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

The Data Hoarders
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 30 Apr '20

30 Apr '20

Turns out there’s a whole Reddit subforum devoted to the subject of digital data hoarding. And of course the activity has a long history, from well before the era of digital electronic computers <https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/04/digital-hoarders-our-terabytes-are-p…>.

1 4

A bit of light relief!!
by john 30 Apr '20

30 Apr '20

A plain computer illiterate guy rings tech support to report that his computer is faulty. Tech: What’s the problem? User: There is smoke coming out of the power supply. Tech: (keep quite) Tech: You’ll need a new power supply. User: No, I don’t! I just need to change the startup files. Tech: Sir, the power supply is faulty. You’ll need to replace it. User: No way! Someone told me that I just needed to change the startup and it will fix the problem! All I need is for you to tell me the command. Tech support:: 10 minutes later, the User is still adamant that he is right. The tech is frustrated and fed up. Tech support:: (hush hush) Tech: Sorry, Sir. We don’t normally tell our customers this, but there is an undocumented DOS command that will fix the problem. User: I knew it! Tech : Just add the line LOAD NOSMOKE.COM at the end of the CONFIG.SYS. Let me know how it goes. 10 minutes later. User : It didn’t work. The power supply is still smoking. Tech : Well, what version of DOS are you using? User : MS-DOS 6.22 . Tech : That’s your problem there. That version of DOS didn’t come with NOSMOKE. Contact Microsoft and ask them for a patch that will give you the file. Let me know how it goes. 1 hour later. User : I need a new power supply. Tech support : How did you come to that conclusion? Tech support : (hush hush) User : Well, I rang Microsoft and told him about what you said, and he started asking questions about the make of power supply. Tech: Then what did he say? User: He told me that my power supply isn’t compatible with NOSMOKE. Cheers John..

1 0

OS Vulnerabilities
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 29 Apr '20

29 Apr '20

While fixes for security bugs on the Linux platform usually come out quickly, there do seem to be a lot of laggards in deploying them <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/28/vulnerabilities_report_9_million/>. Why is this? The researchers speculate that "Windows admins are more accustomed to regular reboots after decades of conditioning," while "tooling for managing Linux fleets at scale generally lags behind that of Windows." Also perhaps the Linux installations include a lot of embedded/IoT devices that never get manufacturer updates.

1 0

Alternatives To The OOM Killer
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 29 Apr '20

29 Apr '20

By default, if a process asks for more (virtual) memory, the Linux kernel never says no. (It can be easily configured to do so, if you want.) Therefore, it is possible for a process to try to access more memory than the system has available. This situation triggers the dreaded “OOM Killer” <https://lwn.net/Articles/317814/>, which hunts around for resource-hogging processes and kills them according to a priority scheme that nobody quite understands. To avoid things getting this bad, various people have come up with alternatives in the form of userspace daemons that monitor system resource usage, and implement their own (configurable) rules for killing processes before things get dire enough to wake up the OOM Killer. The announcement of Fedora 32 mentions <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/28/red_hat_summit/> the inclusion of one of these solutions, “EarlyOOM”. Looking at the project’s <https://github.com/rfjakob/earlyoom> readme page shows mention of two others: “nohang” (written in Python) and “oomd” (from Facebook). I see all three available as standard Debian packages, at least as of Debian Unstable.

1 0

One Space Or Two?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 29 Apr '20

29 Apr '20

>From the “Yet Another Subject For A Holy War” Department, Microsoft is planning for the next update to Word to flag two spaces after a full stop and before the next sentence as a typo <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/27/microsoft_roundup/>. Two spaces after a full stop was long-standing practice for typewritten text, and carried over to some extent to computer users. But with the advent of WYSIWYG word processing and proportional fonts, it became more common to adopt the practice of typeset text, and only put one space after a full stop, before the next sentence. Where do you stand? Microsoft ran a poll on the question, and it seems the majority favoured a single space.

3 3

Lenovo is joining Dell in the “OEM Linux Laptop” club
by Peter Reutemann 28 Apr '20

28 Apr '20

'It looks like Lenovo may upstage Dell as the big name in OEM Linux laptops—not counting specialty retailers like System76, of course. Red Hat and Lenovo are announcing pre-installed and factory-supported Fedora Workstation on several models of ThinkPad laptops at Red Hat Summit this week. Dell's Linux support has generally been limited to one or two very specific laptops—first, the old Atom-powered netbooks and, more recently, the XPS 13 Developer Edition line. Lenovo is planning a significantly broader Linux footprint in its lineup. Fedora Workstation will be a selectable option during purchase for the Thinkpad P1 Gen2, Thinkpad P53, and Thinkpad X1 Gen8 laptops—and Lenovo may offer even broader model support in the future. Lenovo Senior Linux Developer Mark Pearson, who will be the featured guest in the May 2020 Fedora Council Video Meeting, expresses the company's stance on forthcoming integration: "Lenovo is excited to become a part of the Fedora community. We want to ensure an optimal Linux experience on our products. We are committed to working with and learning from the open source community."' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/04/lenovo-is-joining-dell-in-the-oem-l… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Hackers Are Exploiting a Sophos Firewall Zero-day
by Peter Reutemann 28 Apr '20

28 Apr '20

'Cyber-security firm Sophos has published an emergency security update to patch a zero-day vulnerability in its XG enterprise firewall product that was being abused in the wild by hackers. From a report: Sophos said it first learned of the zero-day on late Wednesday, April 22, after it received a report from one of its customers. The customer reported seeing "a suspicious field value visible in the management interface." After investigating the report, Sophos determined this was an active attack and not an error in its product. "The attack used a previously unknown SQL injection vulnerability to gain access to exposed XG devices," Sophos said in a security advisory today. Hackers targeted Sophos XG Firewall devices that had their administration (HTTPS service) or the User Portal control panel exposed on the internet. Sophos said the hackers used the SQL injection vulnerability to download a payload on the device. This payload then stole files from the XG Firewall.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/04/27/162211 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

New CPU Performance Testing Concludes AMD Beats Intel
by Peter Reutemann 27 Apr '20

27 Apr '20

'If you're looking for the best gaming CPU or the best CPU for desktop applications, there are only two choices to pick from: AMD and Intel. That fact has spawned an almost religious following for both camps, and the resulting flamewars, that make it tricky to get unbiased advice about the best choice for your next processor. But in many cases, the answer is actually very clear. In fact, for most users, it's a blowout win in AMD's favor. That's an amazing reversal of fortunes for the chipmaker after it teetered on the edge of bankruptcy a mere three years ago, making its turnaround all the more impressive as it continues to upset the entrenched Intel that enjoyed a decade of dominance... Pricing is the most important consideration for almost everyone, and AMD is hard to beat in the value department. The company offers a plethora of advantages, like bundled coolers and full overclockability on all models, not to mention complimentary software that includes the innovative Precision Boost Overdrive auto-overclocking feature. You also benefit from the broad compatibility of Socket AM4 motherboards that support both forward and backward compatibility, ensuring that not only do you get the most bang for your processor buck, but also your motherboard investment. AMD also allows overclocking on all but its A-Series motherboards (see our article on how to overclock AMD Ryzen), which is another boon for users. And, in this battle of AMD vs Intel CPUs, we haven't even discussed the actual silicon yet. AMD's modern processors tend to offer either more cores or threads and faster PCIe 4.0 connectivity at every single price point. "We're not covering laptop or server chips," the article notes, adding "There's a clear winner overall, but which brand of CPU you should buy depends most on what kind of features, price and performance are important to you." Still, it's noteworthy that AMD beats Intel in 7 out of 10 comparisons. The three in which Intel won were gaming performance ("only because we measure strictly by the absolute top performance possible"), drivers and software ("the company has an army of software developers [and] a decade of dominance also finds most software developers optimizing almost exclusively for Intel architectures"), and overclocking, where Intel "has far more headroom and much higher attainable frequencies. "Just be prepared to pay for the privilege."' -- source: https://slashdot.org/story/20/04/26/1622236 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

distro showdown for virtual meeting in May?
by Peter Reutemann 26 Apr '20

26 Apr '20

Hi everyone What about a distro showdown for our (virtual) WLUG meeting in May? For instance: - GhostBSD - Ubuntu 20.04 - Manjaro - Arch - Gentoo - ... People can just demo a single distro for a few minutes via BigBlueButton (you can share your screen real easy with BBB). Thoughts? Volunteers? Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

2 1

Virtual meetings?
by Peter Reutemann 24 Apr '20

24 Apr '20

Hi everyone Our last meeting moved to virtual Google Hangout on short notice, which probably explained the low turnout. My question is, whether speakers and attendees would be willing to move to virtual ones, to keep our little community together and going? The last meeting was done with Google Hangouts, as it allows sharing the screen as well. Doesn't have to be Hangouts, it was simply convenient as a lot of people have gmail accounts. Open to viable alternatives. Stay safe! Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

4 7

Why You Need A Bigger OS Partition
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 24 Apr '20

24 Apr '20

root(a)theon:~ # apt-get install games-all Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done The following additional packages will be installed: 0ad 0ad-data 0ad-data-common 7kaa 7kaa-data a7xpg a7xpg-data abe abe-data ace-of-penguins alex4 alex4-data armagetronad armagetronad-common asc asc-data asc-music atomix atomix-data bastet beep berusky berusky-data biniax2 biniax2-data blobby blobby-data bloboats blobwars blobwars-data blockattack bsdgames btanks btanks-data burgerspace bzflag-client bzflag-data caveexpress caveexpress-data cgoban chromium-bsu chromium-bsu-data cultivation darkplaces dreamchess dreamchess-data empire enigma enigma-data enigma-doc epiphany epiphany-data extremetuxracer extremetuxracer-data famfamfam-flag-png flare-engine flare-game flightgear flightgear-data-ai flightgear-data-all flightgear-data-base flightgear-data-models flightgear-phi ... ufoai-sound ufoai-textures unknown-horizons warmux warmux-data warzone2100 warzone2100-data warzone2100-music wesnoth wesnoth-1.14 wesnoth-1.14-aoi wesnoth-1.14-core wesnoth-1.14-data wesnoth-1.14-did wesnoth-1.14-dm wesnoth-1.14-dw wesnoth-1.14-ei wesnoth-1.14-httt wesnoth-1.14-l wesnoth-1.14-low wesnoth-1.14-music wesnoth-1.14-nr wesnoth-1.14-sof wesnoth-1.14-sota wesnoth-1.14-sotbe wesnoth-1.14-thot wesnoth-1.14-trow wesnoth-1.14-tsg wesnoth-1.14-ttb wesnoth-1.14-utbs widelands widelands-data xmoto xmoto-data Suggested packages: 7kaa-music bzflag-server freeciv-client-extras freeciv-sound-standard fretsonfire-game games-adventure games-arcade games-board games-c++-dev games-card games-chess games-console games-content-dev games-education games-emulator games-fps games-java-dev games-minesweeper games-mud games-perl-dev games-platform games-programming games-puzzle games-python3-dev games-racing games-rogue games-rpg games-shootemup games-simulation games-sport games-strategy games-tetris games-toys games-typing libopenal0a libsimage-dev libbullet2 libjs-jquery-flot-docs libjs-angularjs libswt-gtk-4-java minissdpd mumble minetest-mod-moreblocks minetest-mod-moreores minetest-mod-pipeworks minetest-server minetestmapper xqf openttd-opensfx pioneers-metaserver freecell-solver-bin pysolfc-cardsets python3-pil.imagetk-dbg python-pygame-doc spring-javaai teeworlds-server ufoai-server ufoai-uforadiant Recommended packages: fretsonfire The following NEW packages will be installed: ... 0 upgraded, 327 newly installed, 0 to remove and 86 not upgraded. Need to get 9,962 MB of archives. After this operation, 14.7 GB of additional disk space will be used. Do you want to continue? [Y/n] Time was when 30-40GB was sufficient for an OS partition. But not any more. This is why, when I upgraded my boot drive a few weeks ago, I allocated 100GB for the OS.

1 0

When in Doubt: Hang Up, Look Up, and Call Back
by Peter Reutemann 24 Apr '20

24 Apr '20

'Many security-conscious people probably think they'd never fall for a phone-based phishing scam. But if your response to such a scam involves anything other than hanging up and calling back the entity that claims to be calling, you may be in for a rude awakening. Brian Krebs: Here's how one security and tech-savvy reader got taken for more than $10,000 in an elaborate, weeks-long ruse. Today's lesson in how not to get scammed comes from "Mitch," the pseudonym I picked for a reader in California who shared his harrowing tale on condition of anonymity. Mitch is a veteran of the tech industry -- having worked in security for several years at a fairly major cloud-based service -- so he's understandably embarrassed that he got taken in by this confidence scheme. On Friday, April 17, Mitch received a call from what he thought was his financial institution, warning him that fraud had been detected on his account. Mitch said the caller ID for that incoming call displayed the same phone number that was printed on the back of his debit card. But Mitch knew enough of scams to understand that fraudsters can and often do spoof phone numbers. So while still on the phone with the caller, he quickly logged into his account and saw that there were indeed multiple unauthorized transactions going back several weeks. Most were relatively small charges -- under $100 apiece -- but there were also two very recent $800 ATM withdrawals from cash machines in Florida. If the caller had been a fraudster, he reasoned at the time, they would have asked for personal information. But the nice lady on the phone didn't ask Mitch for any personal details. Instead, she calmly assured him the bank would reverse the fraudulent charges and said they'd be sending him a new debit card via express mail. After making sure the representative knew which transactions were not his, Mitch thanked the woman for notifying him, and hung up. The following day, Mitch received another call about suspected fraud on his bank account. Something about that conversation didn't seem right, and so Mitch decided to use another phone to place a call to his bank's customer service department -- while keeping the first caller on hold. "When the representative finally answered my call, I asked them to confirm that I was on the phone with them on the other line in the call they initiated toward me, and so the rep somehow checked and saw that there was another active call with Mitch," he said. "But as it turned out, that other call was the attackers also talking to my bank pretending to be me."' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/20/04/23/1933254 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

NordVPN Unveils First Mainstream WireGuard Virtual Private Network
by Peter Reutemann 23 Apr '20

23 Apr '20

'One of the largest VPN companies, NordVPN, is rolling out NordLynx -- it's first mainstream WireGuard virtual private network for its Windows, Mac, Android and iOS client-software applications. ZDNet reports: NordVPN's own tests have shown NordLynx easily outperforms the other protocols, IKEv2/IPsec and OpenVPN. How much faster? According to NordVPN's 256,886 speed tests, "When a user connects to a nearby VPN server and downloads content that's served from a content delivery network (CDN) within a few thousand miles/kilometers, they can expect up to twice higher download and upload speed." While speed is what customers will notice, security experts like WireGuard for its code's simplicity. With only about 4,000 lines of code, WireGuard's code can be comprehensively reviewed by a single individual. Besides WireGuard, NordVPN adds in its double Network Address Translation (NAT) system to protect users' privacy. This enables users to establish a secure VPN connection while storing no identifiable user data on a server. You're assigned a dynamic local IP address that remains assigned only while the session is active. User authentication is done with the help of a secure external database. To switch to NordLynx, users need to update their NordVPN app to the latest version. The NordLynx protocol can be chosen manually from the Settings menu. ' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/04/22/2029227 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

From The “Too Much Time On Their Hands” Department ...
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 23 Apr '20

23 Apr '20

... comes this pure-CSS recreation <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/22/windows_98_css/> of the “Windows-98” look for your web pages. Personally, I can relate to this comment of the author: “Buttons just don't look like buttons anymore, it's so sad”. Basically, UI experts nowadays seem to be concentrating more on fashion, and the whole concept of “usability testing” has gone out the window.

1 0

Stripe Is Silently Recording Your Movements On Its Customers' Websites
by Peter Reutemann 23 Apr '20

23 Apr '20

'Michael Lynch, blogger and former software engineer at Microsoft and Google, discovered that the payment processing platform Stripe and its official JavaScript library records all browsing activity on its customers' websites and reports it back to the company. Lynch says this data includes the following: 1. Every URL the user visits on my site, including pages that never display Stripe payment forms 2. Telemetry about how the user moves their mouse cursor while browsing my site 3. Unique identifiers that allow Stripe to correlate visitors to my site against other sites that accept payment via Stripe In his blog post, Lynch shares what he found, who else it affects, and how you can limit Stripe's data collection in your web applications. Here's how he says he made the discovery: I discovered this by accident while adding paid plans to my portfolio rebalancer. As part of development, I was using an HTTP proxy that allows me to inspect HTTP traffic from my browser. After successfully implementing my app's payment flow with Stripe, I noticed that every page navigation generated a new HTTP POST request to a Stripe URL. This was strange because none of the pages I visited contained any calls to Stripe's library. In fact, my app doesn't collect payment information from users until they create an account, but Stripe was making HTTP requests when I landed on my app's homepage as a brand new user with no cookies or stored credentials. "I looked around for an official disclosure from Stripe about this behavior, but I couldn't find anything," adds Lynch. "The closest I found is this vague paragraph on their npm package description, which the Stripe support rep quoted to me: 'To best leverage Stripe's advanced fraud functionality, ensure that Stripe.js is loaded on every page, not just your checkout page. This allows Stripe to detect anomalous behavior that may be indicative of fraud as customers browse your website.'" "The privacy policy is a bit more specific about the data they collect, but it implies that they're collecting this data on stripe.com rather than on customer sites," writes Lynch. "Worryingly, the privacy policy also includes loose wording that allows Stripe to sell this data to advertisers: 'When you visit our Sites or online services, both we and certain third parties collect information about your online activities over time and across different sites to provide you with advertising about products and services tailored to your individual interests.'"' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/20/04/22/0023222 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

2 1

Vivaldi Browser Gets Built-in Tracking Blocker, Goes GA on Android
by Peter Reutemann 23 Apr '20

23 Apr '20

'Vivaldi, the browser launched by former Opera CEO Jon von Tetzchner, has long positioned itself as a highly customizable alternative to Chrome and Firefox for power users. Today, the team is launching version 3.0 of its desktop browser, with built-in tracker and ad blockers, and it's bringing its Android browser out of beta. From a report: I've long been a fan of Vivaldi, but the company was relatively late to the tracking protection game. Now it's doubling down by integrating a blocklist powered by DuckDuckGo's Tracker Radar. Like competing browsers, Vivaldi offers three blocking levels that users can easily toggle on and off for individual websites. Those blocking levels are relatively blunt, though, with the options to either block trackers, block trackers and ads, or disable blocking. Competitors like Edge offer slightly more nuanced options for blocking trackers, though I would expect Vivaldi to adopt a similar scheme over time.' -- source: https://slashdot.org/story/20/04/22/1550251 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Edge TV Now Online-Only
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 22 Apr '20

22 Apr '20

If there is anybody else besides me who wondered what happened to Edge TV, as of the beginning of this month it is no longer on Freeview, it can now only be viewed as an online stream <https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/tv-radio/113928839/the-edge-tv-remove…>. In the last few days of June, there was a promo announcing that it was going HD, but I don’t recall it mentioning that it was leaving the broadcast airwaves. Quote: MediaWorks chief executive Michael Anderson says the move is in line with audience trends, which show people primarily consume music videos online. While that may be mostly true, personally I would go look for videos on YouTube after seeing them first on Edge TV.

6 12

Discord Switching From Go To Rust
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 22 Apr '20

22 Apr '20

Came across this blog post <https://blog.discordapp.com/why-discord-is-switching-from-go-to-rust-a190bb…> explaining why Discord, which has been using Google’s Go language to implement its services, has now decided to rewrite them in Mozilla’s Rust. The problem was garbage collection. Go has a similar memory-allocation model to Java or LISP, where you can create objects and simply forget about them when you don’t need them any more, and a background process will automatically reclaim the storage at some point. The trouble is, that reclamation process (the “garbage collector”) tends to be the source of performance bottlenecks in the system. Not to mention that the memory usage of your program can grow to fill all available space, unless you impose arbitrary limits on it. Languages like Perl and Python use a hybrid model, where objects have reference counts attached to them, keeping track of how many other objects or variables still point to them, so they can be automatically freed when the count goes to zero. There are cases where this isn’t enough, and in those cases a full garbage-collection process kicks in. One benefit that I certainly observe with this is that memory usage for a program can remain reasonable, even after it has been running for a long time. Rust avoids the whole issue in a clever way, by having the compiler enforce memory-ownership restrictions in the language itself, so memory can be correctly allocated and freed without resorting to a garbage collector. The result is that Rust can achieve significantly higher performance than Go, while avoiding most of the attendant risks of dumping the whole responsibility for memory management on the programmer, as is done in languages like C++ and C.

1 1

Google Wants To Phase Out Browser User-Agent Strings
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 21 Apr '20

21 Apr '20

Google wants to reduce the large amount of information browsers typically pack into the “User-Agent” header lines they send out, but this has been delayed for now <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/20/google_useragent_string_revision/>. This makes sense. Sites should not be changing their behaviour based on how browsers identify themselves, but on what functionality they actually support. But I wonder what this will mean for sites that routinely block the default user agents for scripting tools like wget and Python’s urllib ... But who is objecting to Google’s plan? Advertisers, who are apparently relying on user-agent checks as an important part of their mechanism for detecting ad fraud. Which is quite an incredible admission, really.

1 0

GhostBSD
by tom butz 21 Apr '20

21 Apr '20

There still are several BSDs around: OpenBSD, NetBSD, FreeBSD, TrueOS and GhostBSD. They usually lack desktops, but GhostBSD has got one, and it looks good. I started with the latest version, 20 something: that one didn't work properly for me Then I used 18.10 where there were issues with the LAN, and finally everything worked using 19.10 - both on my laptop and an old Macmini. BTW, I've also installed it on an external USB3-drive (500 GB) and it can boot from it. GhostBSD supports the ZFS-filesystem and will read/write from/to msdos and linux filesystems. I haven't tried writing to an ext4 system, only read from ext-sticks. You need to do some extra work to enable read/write to extfat. LAN and WiFi worked well and Firefox is very fast. My laptop has 6 GB of RAM and I ran everything in single-user mode, just to get some extra speed. Thanks go to Peter who found the older versions on a US-server - GhostBSD is made in Canada. Tom Butz.

1 0

XCP-ng Motors Along
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 20 Apr '20

20 Apr '20

First I heard of this XCP-ng project, which aims to produce an open-source version (!) of XenServer <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/20/xcpng_100000_download_milestone_an…>. To add to the surprise, it is actually getting support from the Xen Project.

1 0

As Raspberry Pi Sales Skyrocket, Eben Upton Applauds Efforts of Open Hardware Community
by Peter Reutemann 20 Apr '20

20 Apr '20

'"Sales of Raspberry Pi's single-board computers hit 640,000 in March, the second-biggest month for sales since they started selling," reports TechRepublic, "as consumers flocked to inexpensive ways to work and learn from home." But that's not all, Eben Upton tells them: With the pandemic having highlighted shortages in personal protective equipment (PPE), 3D-printing manufacturers and hobbyists have been building face shields printed on plastic acetate that can be quickly assembled and delivered to hospitals, for free. "A lot of that is Pi-driven," Upton explained, noting that OctoPrint, which is the most popular platform for managing 3D printers, runs on Raspberry Pi... "[M]aking face shields seems to be a community effort. You have people with a home printer, printing these things once a week and then going to a post office and sending them," he said. "Then you'll have some people sat in a hack space receiving the parcels, cutting the acetate and the elastic, assembling them into face shields then sending them to the hospital. It's amazing." Upton suggested this effort could eventually be ramped up to a "massively distributed scale", with the benefit of open source being that, once you have a good design that works, it can be rapidly iterated. In the long term, this could even include the ventilators themselves, he said. "One thing we're seeing with this is people finding a niche within which open hardware really works," he said. ' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/04/19/0154201 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Will Companies Cut Open Source Investment Because of COVID-19?
by Peter Reutemann 20 Apr '20

20 Apr '20

'The editor of TFIR posed an interesting question to Rob Hirschfeld, the Founder/CEO of RackN (which automates and integrates bare-metal infrastructure). Will the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic affect the sustainability of open source software? Hirschfeld responded: "The idea that big companies are maintaining open-source projects for the community good is going to get tested, as companies look for places where they can conserve revenue. I think that's a really critical thing." "The same is going to be true with open-source startups that are hoping to monetize support or consulting but have no real gate across the front of their infrastructure... Companies might decide they can use the open-source project and not pay the sustaining engineers that are working in that project. "These are really serious concerns about the whole open-source model, which relies on goodwill and free money."' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/04/19/0452247 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Supply-chain attack hits RubyGems repository with 725 malicious packages
by Peter Reutemann 20 Apr '20

20 Apr '20

'More than 725 malicious packages downloaded thousands of times were recently found populating RubyGems, the official channel for distributing programs and code libraries for the Ruby programming language. The malicious packages were downloaded almost 100,000 times, although a significant percentage of those are likely the result of scripts that automatically crawl all 158,000 packages available in the repository, Tomislav Pericin, the cofounder and chief software architect of security firm ReversingLabs, told Ars. All of them originated from just two user accounts: “JimCarrey” and “PeterGibbons.” The accounts, which ReversingLabs suspects may be the work of a single individual, used a variation of typosquatting—the technique of giving a malicious file or domain a name that's similar to a commonly recognizable name—to give the impression they were legitimate. For instance, “atlas-client,” a booby-trapped package with 2,100 downloads, was a stand-in for the authentic “atlas_client” package. More than 700 of the packages were uploaded from February 16 to 25.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/04/725-bitcoin-stealing… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

New Cloudflare tool can tell you if your ISP has deployed BGP fixes
by Peter Reutemann 20 Apr '20

20 Apr '20

'For more than an hour at the beginning of April, major sites like Google and Facebook sputtered for large swaths of people. The culprit wasn't a hack or a bug. It was problems with the internet data routing standard known as the Border Gateway Protocol, which had allowed significant amounts of web traffic to take an unexpected detour through a Russian telecom. For Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince, it was the last straw. BGP disruptions happen frequently, generally by accident. But BGP can also be hijacked for large-scale spying, data interception, or as a sort of denial of service attack. Just last week, United States Executive Branch agencies moved to block China Telecom from offering services in the US, because of allegedly malicious activity that includes BGP attacks. Companies like Cloudflare sit on the front lines of the BGP blowback. And while the company can't fix the problem directly, it can call out those that are slow to contribute defenses.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/04/new-cloudflare-tool-… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Growth In Surveillance May Be Hard To Scale Back After Pandemic, Experts Say
by Peter Reutemann 19 Apr '20

19 Apr '20

Long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo quotes the Guardian: 'The coronavirus pandemic has led to an unprecedented global surge in digital surveillance, researchers and privacy advocates around the world have said, with billions of people facing enhanced monitoring that may prove difficult to roll back. Governments in at least 25 countries are employing vast programmes for mobile data tracking, apps to record personal contact with others, CCTV networks equipped with facial recognition, permission schemes to go outside and drones to enforce social isolation regimes. The methods have been adopted by authoritarian states and democracies alike and have opened lucrative new markets for companies that extract, sell, and analyse private data. One of the world's foremost experts on mobile phone surveillance said the pandemic had created a '9/11 on steroids' that could lead to grave abuses of power. "Most of these measures don't have sunset clauses. They could establish what many people are describing as a new normal," Ron Deibert, who heads the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, said in an interview with the Guardian. The article provides examples from China, Russia, India, Europe, and the United States, and provides a link to an index of new coronavirus-related surveillance measures related to the coronavirus outbreak. The digital rights lead at the group behind the list says "This isn't just an issue with authoritarian governments. This is happening across the world."' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/20/04/18/0717228 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

The Tor Project Lays Off 37% of Its Staff
by Peter Reutemann 19 Apr '20

19 Apr '20

'The Tor Project's executive director Isabela Bagueros writes: Tor, like much of the world, has been caught up in the COVID-19 crisis. Like many other nonprofits and small businesses, the crisis has hit us hard, and we have had to make some difficult decisions. We had to let go of 13 great people who helped make Tor available to millions of people around the world. We will move forward with a core team of 22 people, and remain dedicated to continuing our work on Tor Browser and the Tor software ecosystem. The world won't be the same after this crisis, and the need for privacy and secure access to information will become more urgent. In these times, being online is critical and many people face ongoing obstacles to getting and sharing needed information. We are taking today's difficult steps to ensure the Tor Project continues to exist and our technology stays available. We are terribly sad to lose such valuable teammates, and we want to let all our users and supporters know that Tor will continue to provide privacy, security, and censorship circumvention services to anyone who needs them. Mashable reminds its readers that "Those wishing to make sure the specifics of their online browsing remain their own personal business can donate to Tor's non-profit organization. "Because with more and more of our lives happening online for the foreseeable future, it's a good idea to have an organization working to protect what little digital privacy we have left."' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/20/04/18/1129249 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

After 8 Years of Remote-Access Trojans Attacks, Can We Still Say Linux is Secure?
by Peter Reutemann 19 Apr '20

19 Apr '20

'Remember when BlackBerry reported Advanced Persistent Threat groups have been infiltrating critical Linux servers for at least eight years? What's the lesson to be learned? LinuxSecurity Founder Dave Wreski argues "Although it may be easy to blame the rise in attacks targeting Linux in recent years on security vulnerabilities in the operating system as a whole, this is simply not the truth. The majority of exploits on Linux systems can be attributed to misconfigured servers and poor administration." Writing for Linux Security, Slashdot reader b-dayyy gathered some additional responses: Some experts argue that it is the popularity of Linux that makes it a target. Joe McManus, Director of Security at Canonical, explains: "Linux and, particularly Ubuntu, are incredibly secure systems but, that being said, it is their popularity that makes them a target." Ian Thornton-Trump, a threat intelligence expert and the CISO at Cyjax, adds: "From an economic and mission perspective, it makes sense for a threat actor to invest in open-source skills for flexibility and the ability to target the systems where the good stuff is happening." Despite the increasing number of threats targeting Linux systems, there is still a sound argument for the inherent security of Linux, which can be attributed to the core fundamentals of Open Source. Due to the transparency of open-source code and the constant scrutiny that this code undergoes by a vibrant global community, vulnerabilities are identified and remedied quicker than flaws that exist in the opaque source code of proprietary software and operating systems. Threat actors recognize this, and are still directing the majority of their attacks at proprietary operating systems. These attacks do; however, serve as a much-needed wakeup call for the security community that more needs to be done to protect Linux servers. BlackBerry's report reveals that security solutions and defensive coverage available within Linux environments is "immature at best". Endpoint protection, detection and response products are inadequately utilized by too many Linux users, and endpoint solutions available for Linux systems are often insufficient in combating advanced exploits. Eric Cornelius, Chief Product Officer at BlackBerry, evaluates: "Security products and services that support Linux, offerings that might detect and give us insight into a threat like this, are relatively lacking compared to other operating systems, and security research about APT use of Linux malware is also relatively sparse." ' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/20/04/19/0040223 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Apple > Ikea
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 17 Apr '20

17 Apr '20

Guess how much it costs to get the castor wheel kit for your new Apple Mac Pro <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/16/apple_mac_pro_699_dollar_wheels/>. I wonder what other furnishing-related items Apple could sell. How about a nice doily to go on top?

1 0

New Jersey Needs COBOL Programmers!
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 17 Apr '20

17 Apr '20

The Governor of the US state of New Jersey is appealing for help in maintaining their elderly COBOL-based mainframe systems <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/05/new_jersey_seeks_cobol_volunteers/> that process welfare benefit requests. The volume of requests has gone up a lot lately, and the systems are having trouble coping. By the way, I don’t understand this “ugly side of technical debt” phrase. Does technical debt have a pretty side?

3 4

Linksys Asks Users To Reset Passwords After Hackers Hijacked Home Routers Last Month
by Peter Reutemann 17 Apr '20

17 Apr '20

'Router vendor Linksys has locked user accounts on its Smart WiFi cloud service and is asking them to reset passwords after hackers have been observed hijacking accounts and changing router settings to redirect users to malware sites. From a report: Linksys' decision only impacts Smart WiFi accounts. Linksys Smart WiFi is a cloud-based account system that lets device owners connect to Linksys routers (and other equipment) over the internet to manage router settings. Smart WiFi is widely deployed across Linksys' router fleet, making it an ideal target for hackers who may want to hijack routers en-masse. According to a Bitdefender report published last month, this is exactly what's been recently happening. The cyber-security firm said it detected an organized campaign to break into D-Link and Linksys routers and change DNS settings.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/20/04/16/1727210 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

The secret behind “unkillable” Android backdoor called xHelper has been revealed
by Peter Reutemann 17 Apr '20

17 Apr '20

'In February, a researcher detailed a widely circulating Android backdoor that’s so pernicious that it survives factory resets, a trait that makes the malware impossible to remove without taking unusual measures. The analysis found that the unusual persistence was the result of rogue folders containing a trojan installer, neither of which was removed by a reset. The trojan dropper would then reinstall the backdoor in the event of a reset. Despite those insights, the researcher still didn’t know precisely how that happened. Now, a different researcher has filled in the missing pieces.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/04/solved-how-android-b… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Firefox To Remove Support For the FTP Protocol
by Peter Reutemann 16 Apr '20

16 Apr '20

'Mozilla has announced plans to remove support for the FTP protocol from Firefox. Going forward, users won't be able to download files via the FTP protocol and view the content of FTP links/folders inside the Firefox browser. From a report: "We're doing this for security reasons," said Michal Novotny, a software engineer at the Mozilla Corporation, the company behind the Firefox browser. "FTP is an insecure protocol and there are no reasons to prefer it over HTTPS for downloading resources," he said. "Also, a part of the FTP code is very old, unsafe and hard to maintain and we found a lot of security bugs in it in the past." Novotny says Mozilla plans to disable support for the FTP protocol with the release of Firefox 77, scheduled for release in June this year.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/03/19/169246 There's always FileZilla... Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

2 2

NASA Uses 3D Cardboard Glasses
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 16 Apr '20

16 Apr '20

Here’s a fun one: normally, the drivers of the Curiosity Mars rover have active-shutter 3D glasses for viewing images of the Martian terrain on their office machines. But these don’t work on the hardware that these staffers are currently using from home. So they are falling back to those cheap cardboard red-and-blue glasses that they would give out, included in the price of the ticket, at cinemas <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/15/nasa_cardboard_3d_glasses_for_curi…>.

1 0

Jailbreaking Medical Equipment
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 16 Apr '20

16 Apr '20

A security researcher has been taking a look at a piece of “CPAP” (“Continuous Positive Airway Pressure”) equipment <https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/04/firmware-jailbreak-l…>, normally used to treat sleep apnoea, just to see whether it can be adapted to function as a “BIPAP” (“Bi-Level Positive Airway Pressure”) device, i.e. a full-on ventilator. The manufacturer says no, but the researcher says yes, the device already has the essential functionality available in its firmware, just needing a patch to enable it.

1 0

A story with a happy ending
by Ian Stewart 15 Apr '20

15 Apr '20

Seven years ago, in March 2013, I discovered a bug in the BASIC programming language that is included with LibreOffice suite of applications. I found that if BASIC was requested to return a 1 to 4 x nibbles Hex string, it would return positive integers OK but it would have an error when attempting to return a negative integer. For examples: Cint(&H0) returned 0 OK Cint(&H7FFF) returned 32767 OK Cint(&HFFFF) should have returned -1, but returned an "overflow error" Cint(&H8000) should have returned -32768, but returned an "overflow error". On the 14th March 2013, I opened a case for this issue on Bugzilla and it was logged as Bug 62326 https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=62326 === The most recent comment posted on this bug was two weeks ago: Comment 39 Commit Notification 2020-03-30 06:59:05 UTC Andreas Heinisch committed a patch related to this issue. It has been pushed to "master": https://git.libreoffice.org/core/commit/ffbcbbc8dcc946d4d91cc08a937c2067be5… Cleanup for tdf#130476, tdf#62323 and tdf#62326 It will be available in 7.0.0. === Version 7.0 of LibreOffice is scheduled for release in August 2020. === So.... Good things come to those who wait! cheers, Ian.

3 2

RIP John Conway
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 15 Apr '20

15 Apr '20

One of the higher-profile victims† of Covid-19 has been mathematician John Conway, best known to most people for the invention of the cellular-automata game he called “Life”. This article <https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/04/john-conway-inventor-of-the-game-of…> has some details, including a link to a YouTube video showing a quite amazing configuration of 6 “engines” that generate an endless stream of “Corderships” that go sailing off in one direction. †Another victim I personally feel sad about is Tim Brooke-Taylor. But while I enjoyed his humour (for example in “The Goodies” and “At Last, The 1948 Show” on TV, and “I’m Sorry, I’ll Read That Again” on radio), I can’t think of anything appropriate to this group to say about him...

2 1

Samsung's S-Voice Is Shutting Down On June 1st
by Peter Reutemann 14 Apr '20

14 Apr '20

'Samsung is reportedly shutting off the servers for its S-Voice voice assistant on June 1, 2020, "at which point Samsung's original voice assistant will stop attempting to respond to your voice queries," reports Ars Technica. From the report: S-Voice arose in the early days of voice assistants, when Android OEMs were scrambling to photocopy Apple's Siri voice assistant, which launched in 2011. Samsung licensed the same underlying technology for S-Voice that Apple originally used for Siri -- Nuance Communication's voice recognition -- and set about building its Siri sibling. S-Voice was Samsung's chosen voice assistant for its smartphones until it rebooted its voice efforts with the launch of "Bixby" in 2017. Samsung's Bixby project initially grew out of an acquisition of Viv Labs, a voice-assistant company founded by members of the original Siri team (see a pattern here?). The Galaxy S8 and every device after it launched with Bixby and not S-Voice, so this shutdown should only effect older devices. SamMobile hunted down a list of applicable devices, saying "The affected models that have the S Voice icon on the app screen include the Galaxy A3, A5, A7, A8, A9, Galaxy Note FE, Galaxy Note 2, 3, 4, 5, Galaxy S3, 4, S5, S6, S6 edge in addition to the Galaxy Note Pro 12.2, Galaxy W, Galaxy Tab 4, Galaxy Tab 4 8.0/10.1, Galaxy Tab S8.4 and S10.5. ' -- source: https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/20/04/13/2336220 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

How Steak-umm Became The Tweeting Voice Of Reason In A Pandemic
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 14 Apr '20

14 Apr '20

No, I had never heard of this US-based product before, either. But whoever is in charge of its Twitter account has decided to use their power for good, not for evil <https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200410/17213944276/how-steak-umm-became…>. Consider comments like this: it can be difficult to know what to believe in a time when institutional trust is diminished and the gatekeepers of information have been dismantled, but it's more crucial now than ever before to follow a range of credentialed sources for both breaking news and data collection or this: you can maintain independent, critical thinking toward institutions without dipping into fringe conspiracies that get jumpstarted by individual anecdotes being virally spread as data. it's not easy, but it's necessary to keep any semblance of responsible online information flow or this: we're a frozen meat brand posting ads inevitably made to misdirect people and generate sales, so this is peak irony, but hey we live in a society so please make informed decisions to the best of your ability and don't let anecdotes dictate your worldview ok and this: people think it's bizarre, ironic, and funny when a frozen meat company points out the importance of critical thinking, but chances are the same message would never "go viral" if it was from a person. our society values entertainment over truth and that's a huge problem

1 0

Not actually Linux distro review deux: GhostBSD
by Peter Reutemann 14 Apr '20

14 Apr '20

'When I began work on the FreeBSD 12.1-RELEASE review last week, it didn't take long to figure out that the desktop portion wasn't going very smoothly. I think it's important for BSD-curious users to know of easier, gentler alternatives, so I did a little looking around and settled on GhostBSD for a follow-up review. GhostBSD is based on TrueOS, which itself derives from FreeBSD Stable. It was originally a Canadian distro, but—like most successful distributions—it has transcended its country of origin and can now be considered worldwide. Significant GhostBSD development takes place now in Canada, Italy, Germany, and the United States. The history of desktop-oriented BSD distros is a turbulent one. For several years, Kris Moore's PC-BSD was the go-to for "I want BSD, but I also want a ready-to-go desktop." Eventually, ixSystems—home of the FreeNAS storage distro, and the company Moore is vice president of engineering for—came to rely heavily on the server-side features developed into PC-BSD. The need at ixSystems for the foundation of PC-BSD without the associated desktop led to a rename and a fork. PC-BSD's underpinnings became TrueOS, and the desktop-friendly distribution—now based on TrueOS—became Project Trident. This state of affairs didn't last long. A year later, Project Trident declared unhappiness with TrueOS and BSD in general—mostly due to hardware support, or lack thereof. In January 2020, Trident rebased itself on Void Linux, which its developers found to be "the most BSD-like" of the potential Linux upstream distros they examined. Project Trident's departure for more Linux-y waters left several potential contenders for a desktop-focused BSD distribution. These include FuryBSD, MidnightBSD, DesktopBSD, and GhostBSD itself. I've tested PC-BSD fairly extensively in the past but have no history with any of the current desktop BSD choices. I chose GhostBSD for a first look, solely due to its prominence in Google search results for "desktop BSD distro."' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/04/not-actually-linux-distro-review-de… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

2 1

Linux on Laptops: ASUS Zephyrus G14 with Ryzen 9 4900HS
by Peter Reutemann 14 Apr '20

14 Apr '20

'The Zephyrus G14 is a dual-GPU gaming laptop, and Linux tends not to fare well with that setup. But it's the only Ryzen 4000 equipped laptop I have available—so it was obviously going to get Linux on it, whether it liked it or not. Since brand-new hardware generally calls for brand-new distro versions, I grabbed a fresh copy of the Ubuntu Focal Fossa beta and gave it a whirl. I have the sad duty of reporting that the results were mediocre at best.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/04/linux-on-laptops-asus-zephyrus-g14-… >From my recent experience of setting up a GPU machine, the Nouveau driver was unusable to get a working desktop. I ended up having to use the Ubuntu server edition instead with a text-based setup, which required me to have ethernet plugged in for internet. The strangest thing on this machine is docker: after rebooting the machine, I have to restart docker before I can do anything with it... Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Coronavirus: Raspberry Pi-powered ventilator to be tested in Colombia
by Peter Reutemann 14 Apr '20

14 Apr '20

'A team in Colombia is to test a ventilator made with a Raspberry Pi computer and easy-to-source parts. The design and computer code were posted online in March by a man in California, who had no prior experience at creating medical equipment. Marco Mascorro, a robotics engineer, said he built the ventilator because knew the machines were in high demand to treat Covid-19. His post prompted a flood of feedback from healthcare workers. He has used the advice to make improvements. "I am a true believer that technology can solve a lot of the problems we have right now specifically in this pandemic," he told the BBC. The Colombian team said the design was important for their South American country because parts for traditional models could be hard to obtain. By contrast, Mr Mascorro's design uses only easy-to-find parts - for example, the valves it employs can commonly be found at car and plumbing supply stores. The machine is set to be put through a fast-tracked round of tests at two institutions in Bogota - the University Hospital of the Pontifical Xavierian University and Los Andes University.' -- source: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52251286 -- github: https://github.com/Mascobot/pandemic-ventilator-2.0 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Not-actually Linux distro review: FreeBSD 12.1-RELEASE
by Peter Reutemann 10 Apr '20

10 Apr '20

'This month's Linux distro review isn't of a Linux distribution at all—instead, we're taking a look at FreeBSD, the original gangster of free Unix-like operating systems. The first FreeBSD release was in 1993, but the operating system's roots go further back—considerably further back. FreeBSD started out in 1992 as a patch-release of Bill and Lynne Jolitz's 386BSD—but 386BSD itself came from the original Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). BSD itself goes back to 1977—for reference, Linus Torvalds was only seven years old then. Before we get started, I'd like to acknowledge something up front—our distro reviews include the desktop experience, and that is very much not FreeBSD's strength. FreeBSD is far, far better suited to running as a headless server than as a desktop! We're going to get a full desktop running on it anyway, because according to Lee Hutchinson, I hate myself—and also because we can't imagine readers wouldn't care about it. FreeBSD does not provide a good desktop experience, to say the least. But if you're hankering for a BSD-based desktop, don't worry—we're already planning a followup review of GhostBSD, a desktop-focused BSD distribution.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/04/not-actually-linux-distro-review-fr… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

2 1

Signal Threatens To Dump US Market If EARN IT Act Passes
by Peter Reutemann 10 Apr '20

10 Apr '20

'Signal is warning that an anti-encryption bill circulating in Congress could force the private messaging app to pull out of the U.S. market. PC Magazine reports: Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the free app, which offers end-to-end encryption, has seen a surge in traffic. But on Wednesday, the nonprofit behind the app published a blog post, raising the alarm around the EARN IT Act. "At a time when more people than ever are benefiting from these (encryption) protections, the EARN IT bill proposed by the Senate Judiciary Committee threatens to put them at risk," Signal developer Joshua Lund wrote in the post. Although the goal of the legislation, which has bipartisan support, is to stamp out online child exploitation, it does so by letting the U..S government regulate how internet companies should combat the problem -- even if it means undermining the end-to-end encryption protecting your messages from snoops. If the companies fail to do so, they risk losing legal immunity under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which can shield them from lawsuits concerning objectionable or illegal content posted on their websites or apps. "Some large tech behemoths could hypothetically shoulder the enormous financial burden of handling hundreds of new lawsuits if they suddenly became responsible for the random things their users say, but it would not be possible for a small nonprofit like Signal to continue to operate within the United States," Lund wrote in the blog post.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/20/04/09/2014207 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Meet dark_nexus, quite possibly the most potent IoT botnet ever
by Peter Reutemann 10 Apr '20

10 Apr '20

'A newly discovered botnet that preys on home routers, video recorders, and other network-connected devices is one of the most advanced Internet-of-things platforms ever seen, researchers said on Wednesday. Its list of advanced features includes the ability to disguise malicious traffic as benign, maintain persistence, and infect devices that run on at least 12 different CPUs. Researchers from antivirus provider Bitdefender described the so-called dark_nexus as a “new IoT botnet packing new features and capabilities that put to shame most IoT botnets and malware that we’ve seen.” In the three months that Bitdefender has tracked it, dark_nexus has undergone 30 version updates, as its developer has steadily added more features and capabilities.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/04/meet-dark_nexus-quit… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Chinese Cybercriminals Target High-Value Linux Servers With Weak Defenses: BlackBerry
by Peter Reutemann 10 Apr '20

10 Apr '20

'Linux malware is real and Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) groups have been infiltrating critical servers with these tools for at least eight years, according to a new report from BlackBerry. From a report: In "Decade of the RATs: Cross-Platform APT Espionage Attacks Targeting Linux, Windows and Android," security researchers found that these groups have attacked companies around the world and across all industries with goals ranging from simple cybercrime to full-blown economic espionage. The RATs report describes how five APT groups are working with the Chinese government and the remote access trojans (RATs) the cybercriminals are using to get and maintain access to Linux servers. According to the report, the groups appeared to be using WINNTI-style tooling to take aim at Linux servers and remain relatively undetected for almost a decade. These groups are targeting Red Hat Enterprise, CentOS, and Ubuntu Linux environments for espionage and intellectual property theft. The APT groups examined include the original WINNTI GROUP, PASSCV, BRONZE UNION, CASPER (LEAD), and a newly identified group BlackBerry researchers are tracking as WLNXSPLINTER. The BlackBerry researchers think all five groups are working together, given the distinct similarities in their preferred tools, tactics, and procedures.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/20/04/09/1538218 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Google Launches Braille Keyboard for Android Devices
by Peter Reutemann 10 Apr '20

10 Apr '20

'Google today announced the launch of a virtual braille keyboard for Android that's designed to enable those with low vision or blindness to type on their phones without additional hardware. From a report: The tech giant says it collaborated with braille developers and users to create it, and to ensure it can be used anywhere a user would normally type -- including social media, text messaging, and email apps. According to the World Health Organization, at least 2.2 billion people globally have a vision impairment or blindness. To address their needs, Google previously developed and released BrailleBack, an accessibility service for Android that helps users make use of braille devices, but BrailleBack didn't offer on-screen typing.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/04/09/1831238 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Windows 10 Is Getting Linux Files Integration In File Explorer
by Peter Reutemann 09 Apr '20

09 Apr '20

'Microsoft is planning to fully integrate Linux file access into the built-in File Explorer. The Verge reports: A new Linux icon will be available in the left-hand navigation pane in File Explorer, providing access to the root file system for any distros that are installed in Windows 10. The icon that will appear in File Explorer is the famous Tux, the penguin mascot for the Linux kernel. Microsoft is testing the Linux File Explorer integration in a new build of Windows 10 that's available for testers today. Previously, Windows 10 users would have to manually navigate to a UNC path to get access to Linux files from the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). If you have WSL enabled, then the Tux will appear in File Explorer, and Microsoft is now seeking feedback on the integration before it's finalized as part of a future Windows 10 update. The software maker will ship this update to all Windows 10 users later this year. ' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/20/04/08/2146226 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

corp.com Saved From Falling Into The Wrong Hands
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 09 Apr '20

09 Apr '20

Seems that early versions of Windows Active Directory would offer a default path name of “corp” during setup. Back in the days before the Internet became a part of everyday life, many admins accepted this without thinking too much about it. But once you start connecting servers to the Internet, they are liable to do DNS lookups on names like this, and accidentally connecting to something like “corp.com”. So to avoid such a name from coming under the control of less-than-savoury elements, Microsoft has bought it over <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/08/microsoft_active_directory/>. One of the reader comments links to this old Microsoft blog post <https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20061013-05/?p=29393>, which explains that example/default names like “Contoso” and “Fabrikam” used in Microsoft’s documentation and products were actually created by their legal department, after a careful vetting process to ensure that they are indeed entirely fictitious.

1 0

Cryptominer Linux Malware Infecting Docker Containers
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 09 Apr '20

09 Apr '20

Seems some people are not properly securing their Docker setups <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/08/docker_malware_attacks/>, allowing the “Kinsing” malware to gain entrance and hijack your CPU time to do cryptocurrency mining.

1 0

Longtime Mozilla Leader Mitchell Baker is Now CEO
by Peter Reutemann 09 Apr '20

09 Apr '20

'On Wednesday, Mozilla chair and longtime leader Mitchell Baker was named permanent CEO of the company that makes the Firefox web browser. >From a report: Mitchell became interim CEO of Mozilla in December 2019, after former CEO Chris Beard resigned. The company conducted an external candidate search over the last eight months, and concluded the Mitchell is the right leader for Mozilla at this time, according to a company blog post published Wednesday. "Increasingly, numbers of people recognize that the internet needs attention," Baker said in another Mozilla blog post Wednesday. "Mozilla has a special, if not unique role to play here. It's time to tune our existing assets to meet the challenge. It's time to make use of Mozilla's ingenuity and unbelievable technical depth and understanding of the "web" platform to make new products and experiences. It's time to gather with others who want these things and work together to make them real."' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/04/08/1720218 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

2 1

Chrome 81 Arrives With Web NFC Origin Trial, AR Features, and Mixed Images Autoupgraded To HTTPS
by Peter Reutemann 09 Apr '20

09 Apr '20

'Google today launched Chrome 81 for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and iOS. Chrome 81 includes an Origin Trial of Web NFC for mobile, early Augmented Reality support, mixed images autoupgraded to HTTPS, TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.1 deprecated, and more developer features. With over 1 billion users, Chrome is both a browser and a major platform that web developers must consider. In fact, with Chrome's regular additions and changes, developers have to stay on top of everything available -- as well as what has been deprecated or removed. Among other things, Chrome 81 removes the "discard" element and FTP support.' -- source: https://slashdot.org/story/20/04/08/1641238 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Tails, the Security-Focused OS, Adds Support For Secure Boot
by Peter Reutemann 09 Apr '20

09 Apr '20

'Tail OS, an operating system optimized for privacy and anonymity, has released version 4.5 this week, the first version that supports a crucial security feature named UEFI Secure Boot. From a report: Secure Boot works by using cryptographic signatures to verify that firmware files loaded during a computer's boot-up process are authentic and have not been tampered. If any of the firmware checks fail, Secure Boot has the authority to stop the boot process, preventing the operating system from launching. The feature has been available as part of the UEFI specification for almost two decades but is rarely used. The reason is because not all firmware vendors cryptographically sign their files, leaving the door open to verification errors that -- when Secure Boot is enabled -- block many operation systems from launching.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/20/04/08/1712239 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Google makes seamless update support mandatory in Android 11
by Peter Reutemann 09 Apr '20

09 Apr '20

'Google is putting new rules in place for Android 11: it's going to make support for Android's "seamless update" feature mandatory for devices launching with the new OS. The news comes to us via an Android source code commit first spotted by XDA Developers, which reads, "Require Virtual A/B on R launches." In English, this means the seamless update system, which requires two partitions (labeled "A" and "B"), will be required on Android R, aka Android 11. Android's seamless update system was introduced in Android 7.0 Nougat (it was actually borrowed from Chrome OS) as a way to reduce the downtime caused by OS updates and to offer a recovery mechanism in case an update applies incorrectly. Applying an update to an operating system usually means taking the OS offline for an extended period of downtime. On Android, before seamless updates, the phone would boot into recovery and could be stuck on the "Installing System Update" screen for as much as 25 minutes. That's a lot of downtime, and during this time you can't run any apps, see any text messages, or get any phone calls. The downtime happens because updating the system files requires taking the system partition offline, but the seamless update system fixes this by just having a second copy of the system partition.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/04/google-makes-seamless-update-suppor… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Scratch Makes It To TIOBE Top 20
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 08 Apr '20

08 Apr '20

Scratch, the graphically-based language designed to teach kids how to program, has entered TIOBE’s latest Top 20 list <https://devclass.com/2020/04/06/kids-programming-language-scratch-nails-top…>. Stats language R has also made some gains, getting into the top 10 for the first time.

1 0

Firefox 75 Arrives With Revamped Address Bar; Mozilla To Stick With 2020 Schedule
by Peter Reutemann 08 Apr '20

08 Apr '20

'Mozilla today launched Firefox 75 for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Firefox 75 includes a revamped address bar with significant search improvements, a few performance tweaks, and a handful of developer features. You can download Firefox 75 for desktop now from Firefox.com, and all existing users should be able to upgrade to it automatically. According to Mozilla, Firefox has about 250 million active users, making it a major platform for web developers to consider. When the coronavirus crisis took hold, millions found themselves spending more time in their browsers as they learn and work from home. But the crisis is also impacting software developers. Google was forced to pause its Chrome releases, which typically arrive every six weeks. Ultimately, Chrome 81 was delayed, Chrome 82 is being skipped altogether, and Chrome 83 has been moved up a few weeks. Microsoft has followed suit with Edge's release schedule, consistent with Google's open source Chromium project, which both Chrome and Edge are based on. Mozilla wants to make clear it is not in the same boat. The company took an indirect jab at Google and Microsoft today, saying: "We've built empathy into our systems for handling difficult or unexpected circumstances. These strengths are what allow us to continue to make progress where some of our competitors have had to slow down or stop work."' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/04/07/162246 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Microsoft Announces IPE, a New Code Integrity Feature for Linux
by Peter Reutemann 08 Apr '20

08 Apr '20

'Microsoft has revealed details about a new project it has been working on for Linux kernel. From a report: Named Integrity Policy Enforcement -- or IPE -- the project is a Linux security module (LSM). LSMs are optional add-ons for the Linux kernel that enable additional security features. According to a documentation page published on Monday, IPE is Microsoft's attempt to solve the code integrity problem for Linux -- an operating system the company broadly uses in its Azure cloud service. On Linux systems where IPE is enabled, system administrators can create a list of binaries that are allowed to execute and then add the verification attributes the kernel needs to check for each binary before allowing it to run. If binaries have been altered by an attacker, IPE can block the execution of the malicious code.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/20/04/07/1615232 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Google Backs Apple's SMS OTP Standard Proposal
by Peter Reutemann 08 Apr '20

08 Apr '20

'Google is now backing a standard proposed by Apple engineers in January to create a default format for one-time passcodes (OTP) sent via SMS to users during the two-factor authentication (2FA) process. >From a report: The standard, proposed by Apple engineers working on the Safari WebKit project, has now reached the status of official Web Platform Incubator Community Group (WICG) specification draft. "We've moved 'Origin-bound one-time codes delivered via SMS' to @wicg_, where we're working on a shared spec with our collaborators at Google. Please take a look! Updated explainer, and specification," wrote Apple's Ricky Mondello. The proposal aims to fix some issues with the current state of SMS 2FA/OTP codes, all of which have different formats, unique per the websites sending the codes.' -- source: https://apple.slashdot.org/story/20/04/07/199245 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Edge Overtakes Firefox To Become the Second-Most Popular Browser
by Peter Reutemann 06 Apr '20

06 Apr '20

'It was probably just a matter of time, but the thing so many people, including everyone at Microsoft, expected finally happened: Microsoft Edge surpassed Mozilla Firefox to become the world's second most-used desktop browser. Data provided by market analysis firm NetMarketShare reveals that the whole thing happened in March, when the adoption of the Chromium-powered Microsoft Edge improved to a level that allowed it to overtake Mozilla's own browser. So right now, Microsoft Edge is the second most-used desktop browser on the planet with a share of 7.59%, while Mozilla Firefox is now third with 7.19%. As for who's leading the pack, Google Chrome continues to be number one with a share of 68.50%' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/04/05/1727217 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Eclipse Foundation Unveils Open Source Alternative to Microsoft's 'Visual Studio Code' IDE
by Peter Reutemann 05 Apr '20

05 Apr '20

'"The Eclipse Foundation just released version 1.0 of an open-source alternative to Visual Studio Code called Eclipse Theia," reports SD Times: Theia is an extensible platform that allows developers to create multi-language cloud and desktop IDEs, allowing them to create entirely new developer experiences. According to the Eclipse Foundation, the differences between Theia and Visual Studio Code are that Theia has a more modular architecture, Theia was designed from the ground to run on desktop and cloud, and Theia was developed under community-driven and vendor-neutral governance of the Eclipse Foundation. The Theia project was started by Ericsson and TypeFox in 2016, and since then it has become an integral part of cloud solutions globally. The project approached the Eclipse Foundation about becoming a potential host in 2019. Early contributors to the project include ARM, Arduino, EclipseSource, Ericsson, Google Cloud, IBM, Red Hat, SAP, and TypeFox. "We are thrilled to see Eclipse Theia deliver on its promise of providing a production-ready, vendor-neutral, and open source framework for creating custom and white-labeled developer products," announced Mike Milinkovich, the Eclipse Foundation's executive director. "Visual Studio Code is one of the world's most popular development environments. Not only does Theia allow developers to install and reuse VS Code extensions, it provides an extensible and adaptable platform that can be tailored to specific use cases, which is a huge benefit for any organization that wants to deliver a modern and professional development experience. Congratulations to all the Theia committers and contributors on achieving this milestone." InfoWorld points out that "thus far Theia is intended to be fitted into third-party products. An end-user version is on the roadmap for release later this year." But programming columnist Mike Melanson notes that "Chances are, you've already run into Theia without even realizing it, as it already serves as the basis for Red Hat's CodeReady Workspaces, the Eclipse Foundation's own Eclipse Che, and Google Cloud Shell."' -- source: https://developers.slashdot.org/story/20/04/04/1819251 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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What's New in Linux 5.6? WireGuard VPN and USB4
by Peter Reutemann 05 Apr '20

05 Apr '20

'Linux 5.6 "has a bit more changes than I'd like," Linus Torvalds posted on the kernel mailing list, "but they are mostly from davem's networking fixes pulls, and David feels comfy with them. And I looked over the diff, and none of it looks scary..." TechRadar reports that the new changes include support for USB4 and GeForce RTX 2000 series graphics cards with the Nouveau driver: Yes, Turing GPU support has arrived with the open source Nouveau driver, along with the proprietary firmware images, as Phoronix.com reports. However, don't get too excited, as re-clocking doesn't work yet (getting the GPU to operate at stock clocks), and other important pieces of the puzzle are missing (like no Vulkan support with Nouveau). For the unfamiliar, Nouveau is an alternative to Nvidia's proprietary drivers on Linux, and although it remains in a relatively rough state in comparison, it's still good to see things progressing for Linux gamers with one of Nvidia's latest cards in their PC. Linux 5.6 also introduces fresh elements on the AMD front, with better reset support for Navi and Renoir graphics cards (which helps the GPU recover if it hits a problem)... Another notable move is the introduction of WireGuard support, a newcomer VPN protocol which makes a potentially nifty alternative to OpenVPN. Linux 5.6 also supports the Amazon Echo speaker, and naturally comes with a raft of other minor improvements... Linus's post also notes that for the next release's timing they'll "play it by ear... It's not like the merge window is more important than your health, or the health of people around you." But he says he hasn't seen signs that the pandemic could affect its development (other than the possibility of distraction by the news). "I suspect a lot of us work from home even normally, and my daughter laughed at me and called me a 'social distancing champ' the other day..."' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/20/04/04/2128207 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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U.S. Government: Update Chrome 80 Now, Multiple Security Concerns Confirmed
by Peter Reutemann 05 Apr '20

05 Apr '20

'Part of America's Department of Homeland Security, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) "has advised users to update Google Chrome as new high-rated security vulnerabilities have been found," reports Forbes: In an April 1 posting, CISA confirmed that Google Chrome version 80.0.3987.162 "addresses vulnerabilities that an attacker could exploit to take control of an affected system," be that Windows, Mac or Linux. It went on to state that it "encourages" users and administrators to apply the update. It's not just CISA that is warning about the need to update Google Chrome. The Center for Internet Security (CIS) is a non-profit entity that works to safeguard both private and public organizations against cyber threats. In a multi-state information sharing and analysis center (MS-ISAC) advisory, it has also warned of multiple vulnerabilities in Google Chrome. The most severe of these could allow an attacker to achieve arbitrary code execution within the context of the browser... All it would take for an attacker to exploit the vulnerabilities is to get the user to visit, by way of a phishing attack or even redirection from a compromised site, a maliciously crafted web page. Beside three high-rated vulnerabilities, Forbes reports that "a further five security vulnerabilities were discovered by the Google internal security team using a combination of internal audits and fuzzing."' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/20/04/04/2020211 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Cheap 3D Printer Review
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 05 Apr '20

05 Apr '20

Here’s a review <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3SMUpNH_6I> of a sub-USD100 3D printer from China. Has some good discussion of quality issues in 3D printing generally, and how this relates to the printer versus the filament you use. And I learned about the “3DBenchy” benchmark reference model. Judging from the gear they have access to, LTT seems to have quite a high budget for a YouTube channel. Also some useful notes from knowledgeable users among the comments ... if you can be bothered to dig for them ...

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Yet Another Processor Architecture
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 05 Apr '20

05 Apr '20

Here’s a report <https://www.nextplatform.com/2020/04/02/tachyum-starts-from-scratch-to-etch…> on a startup creating another new, proprietary processor architecture. Proprietary or not, the standard thing to do to get software running on things like this seems to be to port the GNU toolchain. Kernel? OS? No mention of that at this stage. I don’t claim to understand all the details, but it seems to be taking ideas from lots of sources, including Intel’s Itanium (which failed to become a successor to x86). One thing I was surprised to learn is that, as the wires connecting the transistors on a chip get thinner, this also makes them slower. So you don’t get all the gain you were expecting from making them shorter and bringing things closer together. One thing is clear: the Great Wheel Of Reincarnation <https://www.deviantart.com/default-cube/art/Computer-Graphics-And-The-Wheel…> (which in this case would apply to computing generally, not just graphics) has yet to stop spinning ...

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Vint Cerf 'No Longer Contagious' With Covid-19
by Peter Reutemann 05 Apr '20

05 Apr '20

'Good news — VA Public Health has certified my wife and me as no longer contagious with COVID19," tweeted 76-year-old Vint Cerf, one of the creators of the modern internet. He added one word. "Recovering!" It seemed especially appropriate that Cerf shared his news online — and that it drew positive responses from grateful people around the world, including several who use the internet in their daily lives. Cerf's tweet immediately drew positive responses from the Internet Society, as well as the chief operating officer of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, YouTube's director of public policy, and a senior director of communications and public affairs at Google. There were also congratulatory posts from a Georgetown professor of technology and law, from Associated Press reporter Frank Bajak, and the executive director of the Global Privacy and Security by Design Centre. Cerf followed up his news with a re-tweet of Google's "Community Mobility Reports" charting our aggregate movement trends over time, and a tweet of a University of Pittsburgh press release about progress on a COVID-19 vaccine candidate. Earlier in the week Cerf also re-tweeted a humorous compilation of clips from the TV show M*A*S*H that illustrated safe practices while social distancing.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/04/04/0615234 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Will Google Allow An Independent Peek At Its Crown Jewels?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 04 Apr '20

04 Apr '20

An advertising company called Foundem is suing Google <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/03/google_foundem_high_court_seo_expe…> over a drastic demotion in its search rankings and consequent damage to its business, claiming this was an anticompetitive act. Google denies this, and as part of its defence has filed documents with the court giving confidential details of how its search-ranking algorithms work. But of course the lawyers and judge don’t have the background to understand these documents. So the plaintiff wants an independent SEO expert to be able to go over them and make sense of them to the lawyers. Google is vehemently opposed to this. So now the judge has given the company a stark choice: either allow the expert access to those documents, or withdraw them from the evidence (and thereby, by Google’s own admission as to the “vital” nature of these documents for its defence, likely lose the case). Which way do you think Google will decide?

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Phone-tracking of self-isolationists
by tom butz 04 Apr '20

04 Apr '20

When we had to track teenagers' nightclubbing whereabouts (they're adults now), we did the following: 1) made sure we'd written down their mobile phone-numbers (obviously) 2) remembered their names/addresses (obviously) 3) told them to leave their mobiles switched ON all the time (they'd have done that anyway to keep up with Social Media) 4) Sent them a text every hour on the hour and they'd have to reply 'OK'. We'd reimburse them the money for the texts (nice little earner if you're on a plan...). Side-effect: it boosted their self-esteem (wow, getting messages all the time - she must be popular). Was that asking too much? Fast forward to our current lockdown and the way to handle self-quarantine: 1) as above 2) as above 3) as above 4) get info from cellphone-towers to check which one they're logged in. If, for example, someone is in self-quarantine at an Auckland campground and all of a sudden's logged into the Gisborne cell-tower, that would be an indication that they're elsewhere - or that the phone had been stolen. Note that in the case of traffic accidents police already get the info from cell-towers, so they can determine if the driver - according to their phone - was in the area, logged on and texting. Piece of cake for them, according to TVNZ. BTW, there is no need for name-matching: the rental-car companies do that anyway, so the user's name could stay anonymous - until police very kindly ask/beg cap in hand for it to be released. Tom Butz.

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Twitter Discloses Firefox Bug That Cached Private Files Sent or Received via DMs
by Peter Reutemann 03 Apr '20

03 Apr '20

'Social networking giant Twitter today disclosed a bug on its platform that impacted users who accessed their platform using Firefox browsers. >From a report: According to Twitter, its platform stored private files inside the Firefox browser's cache -- a folder where websites store information and files temporarily. Twitter said that once users left their platform or logged off, the files would remain in the browser cache, allowing anyone to retrieve it. The company is now warning users who share workstations or used a public computer that some of their private files may still be present in the Firefox cache. Malware present on a system could also scrape and steal this data, if ever configured to do so.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/04/02/2048216 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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The Internet is Now Rife With Places Where You Can Organize Zoom-bombing Raids
by Peter Reutemann 03 Apr '20

03 Apr '20

'The internet is rife with online communities where users can go and share Zoom conference codes and request that pranksters connect and hurl insults, play pornographic material, or make death threats against other participants -- in a practice called Zoom-bombing or a Zoom raid. From a report: ZDNet began tracking the tactic since mid-March when the term was first coined following a TechCrunch article. Ever since then, Zoom-bombing incidents have increased, as articles in major news outlets like the New York Times and the BBC have made the practice a favorite pastime for all the teenagers stuck in their homes during the current coronavirus (COVID-19) quarantines. From a niche prank that started on a derelict Discord channel, Zoom-bombing has now spread to enormous proportions -- being so rampant these days that the FBI sent a nationwide alert last week, urging companies, schools, and universities to take steps to secure their Zoom channels. But as Zoom-bombing became more popular, more pranksters wanted to join on the fun, and more users wanted their friends' Zoom meetings disrupted. And as the old saying goes; where there's a demand, there's always a supply. Over the course of the past week, the number of places on the public internet where you can request a zoom raid from a gang of bored teenagers has exploded.' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/20/04/02/1937229 How to secure Zoom: https://www.netsafe.org.nz/get-into-zoom/ Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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National Tells PM To Stop Using Zoom At Cabinet Meetings
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 02 Apr '20

02 Apr '20

Security concerns are being raised about the Zoom videoconferencing service, which Jacinda Ardern and her cabinet have been using in their online meetings <https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12321784>.

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