June 2015 - wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

How Long Should Microsoft Be Forced To Provide Windows XP Support?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 26 Jun '15

26 Jun '15

Reading about how the US Navy <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/25/us_navy_windows_xp_support/> has signed a contract to get continuing support from Microsoft for Windows XP, led me to wonder how long is a “reasonable” interval for Microsoft to continue to provide patches and updates for this ancient OS. My reasoning is thus: Windows XP is still under copyright. Microsoft still considers it to be its “intellectual property”. The term “property” is deliberately used, to convey the idea of something owned by Microsoft, not by you, the customer. All you get when you buy it is a “licence”, not ownership. But with property rights come property responsibilities. If your property is causing harm or nuisance to others, the onus is on you to fix it. Therefore, Microsoft’s responsibilities over its “intellctual property” should continue just as long as it claims those property rights. If unmaintained Windows XP machines are being exploited as parts of botnets or spam relays or virus vectors or whatever, the onus for fixing those problems should be on the property owner, right? Under current US copyright law, that duration would be 90 years from when Windows XP was first published, or, by my reckoning, the year 2091.

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F2FS Brings Per-File Encryption With Linux 4.2
by Peter Reutemann 25 Jun '15

25 Jun '15

"Based on the native encryption support added to EXT4 with the Linux 4.1 kernel, Linux 4.2 is bringing encryption support to the F2FS file-system. F2FS has been working on native encryption support in tandem with the EXT4 work and now it's been called for merging today into Linux 4.2. Jaegeuk Kim sent in the F2FS feature update for Linux 4.2 and it features per-file encryption support along with new capabilities for FALLOC_FL_ZERO_RANGE (converting a range of file to zeroes), FALLOC_FL_COLLAPSE_RANGE (removes a byte range from a file), and RENAME_WHITEOUT. The Flash-Friendly File-System for Linux 4.2 also has recovery for broken super-blocks, TRIM improvements, and various fixes. " -- source: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=F2FS-Encryption-Linux-4.2 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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Got Chrome? Google Just Silently Downloaded This Onto Your Computer
by Peter Reutemann 24 Jun '15

24 Jun '15

'On June 17th, Google did not announce (the news broke) that the DARPA affiliated corporation has been silently downloading audio listeners onto every computer that has Chrome. This effectively means that Google sees your privacy as piddly-squat, which does not necessarily come off as a surprise, when one considers Google’s censorship of We Are Change – this very organization as nothing. The website Private Internet Access‘s Rick Falkvinge reported how he came to understand this new policy: “It looked like just another bug report. “When I start Chromium, it downloads something.” Followed by strange status information that notably included the lines “Microphone: Yes” and “Audio Capture Allowed: Yes”. Without consent, Google’s code had downloaded a black box of code that – according to itself – had turned on the microphone and was actively listening to your room.”' -- source: http://wearechange.org/got-chrome-google-just-silently-downloaded-this-onto… Confirmed that on my box as well, when using the following URL: chrome://voicesearch/ Nice... 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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"Invite-Only" Ubuntu Mobile-Powered Meizu UX4 Goes On Sale
by Peter Reutemann 24 Jun '15

24 Jun '15

"Chinese manufacturer Meizu and Ubuntu developer Canonical have released the MX4 smartphone, but prospective owners will have to 'earn' an opportunity to buy the phone by playing an interactive origami game. Players are limited to three chances per day and this is the only way to buy the smartphone as it will no go on wider sale at a later date. The MX4 is the third Ubuntu Mobile smartphone to be released, following the BQ Aquaris E4.5 and E5 devices." -- source: http://news.slashdot.org/story/15/06/24/1642213 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 4.1 Kernel Released With EXT4 Encryption, Performance Improvements
by Peter Reutemann 22 Jun '15

22 Jun '15

"The Linux 4.1 kernel has been announced and its release brings expanded features for the Linux kernel including EXT4 file-system encryption, open-source GeForce GTX 750 support, performance improvements for Intel Atom / Bay Trail hardware, RAID 5/6 improvements, and other additions." -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/15/06/22/1431243 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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Pi and BeagleBone for Dummies in library
by Ian Young 22 Jun '15

22 Jun '15

City libraries have titles in the Dummies series about the Raspberry Pi and BeagleBone. Much of the material is directed at providing information on Linux for beginners, covering much the same ground in both titles. There is also a primer on Python programming. Perhaps the most interesting information deals with hardware aspects of interfacing with the boards including several small projects. In related news the latest Distrowatch Weekly has an article on using a Raspberry Pi as a server for backups in a home network.

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Resurrecting The SuperH Architecture
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 18 Jun '15

18 Jun '15

I guess this is more of an embedded thing, but ... <http://lwn.net/Articles/647636/> “He then asked what constitutes the minimal system that can run Linux. All that is really needed, he said, is a flat, 32-bit memory address space, a CPU with registers to hold instructions, some I/O and storage (from which the kernel and initramfs can be loaded), and a timer for interrupts. That plus GCC is sufficient to get Linux running—although it may not be fast, depending on the specifics. One does not even need a cache, floating-point unit, SMP, or a memory-management unit (MMU).” “The other main advantage of the J2 project is that the work for implementing SuperH support is already done in the kernel, GCC, GDB, strace, and most other system components.” “The project has thus "inherited" an excellent ISA, and has even been in contact with many of the former Hitachi employees that worked on SuperH.” “...there are many ASIC vendors who are happy to produce low-cost chips on their older equipment because the cost of retooling a plant is exorbitant. A 180nm implementation of the J2 design, he said, costs around three cents per chip, with no royalties required. "That's disposable computing at the 'free toy inside' level."” “At the end of the talk, an audience member voiced concern that SuperH was old enough that support for it is unmaintained in a lot of projects. He suggested that the J2 team might need to act quickly to stop its removal. Landley noted that, indeed, the latest buildroot release did remove SuperH support, "but we're trying to get them to put it back now."”

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The South Pole Is On NZ Time!
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 17 Jun '15

17 Jun '15

ldo(a)theon:~> ls -l /usr/share/zoneinfo/Antarctica/ ... lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 5 Apr 27 10:36 South_Pole -> ../NZ ...

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Re: [wlug] The Fate Of The Fairfield Lab
by David Nicholls 17 Jun '15

17 Jun '15

So... What exactly is the Fairfield Lab? Where is it set up? a few details to elaborate on it's background might be helpful. I know someone with teaching (primary) and tech quals who might be useful. On 15 June 2015 at 11:56, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo(a)geek-central.gen.nz> wrote: > To bring up a (not entirely) unrelated subject, I was at Te Whare O Te > Ata last week, and I asked Mike Rarere what was going to happen to the > computer lab. > > It’s clear Bruce Kingsbury was instrumental in getting this lab set up > and running, and it was providing a useful service to the community. > All of which was shot completely to hell as a result of his criminality > and stupidity. > > I understood from Mike that, without somebody willing to provide > full-time support for free, as Bruce was, the lab cannot continue. This > seems a shame, but is there anything else we can do? Fundraise to pay > someone to provide support, even if only part-time? > _______________________________________________ > wlug mailing list | wlug(a)list.waikato.ac.nz > Unsubscribe: http://list.waikato.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/wlug > -- *Cheers...David Nicholls* *Computer Support* *Faculty of Science and Engineering* *x5006, *fsen_csg(a)waikato.ac.nz

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Fwd: [NZLUG] Major Ubuntu Linux Vulnerability - all current versions
by Peter Reutemann 16 Jun '15

16 Jun '15

Apologies, if you've already received this. Cheers, Peter ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Mark Foster Date: Wed, Jun 17, 2015 at 11:28 AM Subject: [NZLUG] Major Ubuntu Linux Vulnerability - all current versions To: NZ Linux Users Group <nzlug(a)lists.nzoss.org.nz>, aucklug(a)googlegroups.com, Wellington Linux Users Group <wellylug(a)lists.wellylug.org.nz> http://seclists.org/oss-sec/2015/q2/717 ... "allows a local root privilege escalation in the default configuration on all currently supported versions of Ubuntu. The overlayfs filesystem does not correctly check file permissions when creating new files in the upper filesystem directory. This can be exploited by an unprivileged process in kernels with CONFIG_USER_NS=y and where overlayfs has the FS_USERNS_MOUNT flag, which allows the mounting of overlayfs inside unprivileged mount namespaces. This is the default configuration of Ubuntu 12.04, 14.04, 14.10, and 15.04 [1]." This could be something requiring a bit of attention. Heads-up. There is a simple work-round if you're not using overlayfs, detailed at the above url. Mark. PS: Apol's for the cross-post. _______________________________________________ NZLUG mailing list NZLUG(a)lists.nzoss.org.nz http://lists.nzoss.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/nzlug -- 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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