May 2016 - wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

How Windows Handles Pathnames
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 08 Sep '16

08 Sep '16

A Google engineer has published a detailed exposé on how Microsoft Windows handles file and directory pathnames (as opposed to how it is documented to handle them) <http://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-definitive-guide-on-win32…> (found from <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/01/windows_path_hacks/>). Most of it, it could be argued, makes some sort of sense from a backward-compatibility rationale. Except for the reserved device names (PRN, NUL, CON etc): Now if just specifying these paths explicitly was all that this process handled it would be annoying but not the end of the world. However it’s much worse. The conversion process actively tries to convert any path with the device name last, even if the path is a Drive Absolute path. To make matters even worse the device name can have arbitrary trailing characters as long the trailing characters are separated from the device by a dot or a colon. The name can then also have trailing spaces. ... Why it does the check is beyond me as it seems to serve no actual purpose. Also note the removal of trailing suffixes, which can come in handy if something is actively trying to guard against this behavior. For example, if an application was mindful and was checking for a filename that matched one of the reserved names you can just bypass that check by appending an arbitrary suffix.

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Op-ed: Oracle attorney says Google’s court victory might kill the GPL
by Peter Reutemann 03 Jun '16

03 Jun '16

"The developer community may be celebrating today what it perceives as a victory in Oracle v. Google. Google won a verdict that an unauthorized, commercial, competitive, harmful use of software in billions of products is fair use. No copyright expert would have ever predicted such a use would be considered fair. Before celebrating, developers should take a closer look. Not only will creators everywhere suffer from this decision if it remains intact, but the free software movement itself now faces substantial jeopardy." -- source: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/05/op-ed-oracle-attorney-says-googl… Interesting article, I have to say. The verdict might throw a spanner in what is considered "derivative work" in terms of GPL code. Companies using GPL libraries will no longer have to open-source their code, as it is simple considered fair use? 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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Tor Browser 6.0: Ditches SHA-1 Support, Uses DuckDuckGo For Default Search Results
by Peter Reutemann 01 Jun '16

01 Jun '16

"The version 6.0 of Tor Browser, a free software for enabling anonymous communication, is now available to download. The new version introduces several changes, including disabling SHA-1 support, and removing Mac Gatekeeper issue. Another big change is that Tor now uses DuckDuckGo for search results by default. The Tor Project, people behind Tor, add that the "updater is not relying on the signature alone, but is checking the hash of the downloaded update file as well before applying it." More details on NetworkWorld." -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/16/05/31/1643234 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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Issue with systemd
by Ian Young 30 May '16

30 May '16

>From this week's Distrowatch. Could be a problem in some circumstances. The systemd project tends to stir up debate with each new feature it implements. One of the most recent changes to systemd (available in version 230), forces user processes to terminate when the user logs out. On some systems, such behaviour makes sense and effectively cleans up misbehaving processes when the user leaves. However, many administrators and developers rely on processes continuing to run to perform tests, backups or other tasks after they log off. Guus Sliepen summed up the concerns of the latter group quite nicely in a Debian bug report: It is now indeed the case that any background processes that were still running are killed automatically when the user logs out of a session, whether it was a desktop session, a VT session, or when you SSHed into a machine. Now you can no longer expect a long running background processes to continue after logging out. I believe this breaks the expectations of many users. For example, you can no longer start a screen or tmux session, log out, and expect to come back to it. For this reason, I think it is a bad decision on the part of the systemd maintainers to enable this feature by default, and it should rather be disabled by default in Debian." A similar discussion is taking place on a Fedora mailing list. The new default systemd behaviour can be disabled (either by distributions or system administrators) by editing the logind configuration file.

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Re: [wlug] Issue with systemd
by Andrew Crosby 30 May '16

30 May '16

To my mind, this seems like a useful feature. Odd choice to have it turned on by default though given the historic convention. Cheers Andrew On 30 May 2016 22:47, "Michael Cree" <mcree(a)orcon.net.nz> wrote: On Mon, May 30, 2016 at 10:22:13AM +0000, Ian Young wrote: > It is now indeed the case that any background processes > that were still running are killed automatically when the user logs > out of a session, whether it was a desktop session, a VT session, or > when you SSHed into a machine. Now you can no longer expect a long > running background processes to continue after logging out. I believe > this breaks the expectations of many users. Yes, it breaks the well established practice that the controlling terminal sends all its child processes a HUP signal on logout, and that the default signal handler will kill such processes, and if the process wants to remain running it therefore establishes a signal handler to properly receive and handle the HUP signal so that it is not terminated. If processes are not being terminated on logout when they should be, then it is the non-terminating processes fault as the process has taken action to set up a non-default signal hangler to receive the HUP signal to achieve this effect. It is most certainly not the responsibility of systemd to kill processes on logout! With these critical and non-sensical changes to system behaviour that is well without the established remit of the init process the systemd developers are fast losing what little respect I might have had for them. Cheers Michael. _______________________________________________ wlug mailing list | wlug(a)list.waikato.ac.nz Unsubscribe: https://list.waikato.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/wlug

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Apropos...
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 30 May '16

30 May '16

<https://twitter.com/nicholasbishop/status/737014814342533121/photo/1>

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Whom to contact for a public mirror for a Linux distribution?
by Michael Doerner - Technologywise 26 May '16

26 May '16

Hi all I am involved with a Linux distribution called "Koozali SME server" (https://wiki.contribs.org/Main_Page) Unfortunately we lost our mirror in NZ (Oceania) due to very sad circumstances and I am looking whether there is a chance to add that distro to one of the existing public mirrors. I am following the Wiki http://wiki.wlug.org.nz/NewZealandLinuxMirrors and would like to ask at University of Canterbury (Hm, there is a directory on their mirror server called "contrib" and I wonder whether there was something planned at some time ago). If someone here knows how to get in contact (email?) with an admin person there, I would appreciate any hint. Thanks Michael Doerner

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Google to bring official Android support to the Raspberry Pi 3
by Peter Reutemann 26 May '16

26 May '16

"The Raspberry Pi 3 is not hurting for operating system choices. The tiny ARM computer is supported by several Linux distributions and even has a version of Windows 10 IoT core available. Now, it looks like the Pi is about to get official support for one of the most popular operating systems out there: Android. In Google's Android Open Source Project (AOSP) repository, a new device tree recently popped up for the Raspberry Pi 3." -- source: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/05/google-to-bring-official-android-sup… 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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Behold, The Raspberry π Citrix Client
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 25 May '16

25 May '16

Citrix have unveiled their new desktop thin client built around a Raspberry π 3 <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/05/24/citrix_bakes_up_raspberry_pi_client/>, for USD89. "In classic disruptive fashion, the Raspberry Pi has already taken a significant share of the education PC market with over 8 million devices shipped," Citrix VP of emerging solutions Chris Fleck said...

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live edition of forthcoming Slackware release
by Ian Young 25 May '16

25 May '16

Anyone who takes an interest in Slackware may like to check out a live version recently made available. Mentioned in this week's Distrowatch Weekly. Link to project blog below. http://alien.slackbook.org/blog/stable-1-0-0-release-of-liveslak/

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Fwd: Bruce Gilbert suggested a new Meetup for WLUG - Waikato Linux Users Group
by Peter Reutemann 25 May '16

25 May '16

What do you guys think of the topic below for the next meeting? Personally, I'm just a Linux user, so not really qualified to discuss the topic. However, I'd be still keen to hear about. Cheers, Peter ---------- Forwarded message ---------- This Meetup will be announced to the group if 3 people say they're going. Or you can announce it now. Bruce Gilbert suggested a new Meetup. What: Talk about Linux/Unix philosophy & 'systemd'. When: This Meetup needs a date Where: This Meetup needs a location 'systemd', which has replaced SYSTEMV 'init' in nearly ALL current Linux distributions, seems to go against the fundamental philosophy of Linux/Unix. It has a 'finger-in-all-pies' approach & is, I believe, unnecessarily complex? Click here to check out this Meetup: http://www.meetup.com/WaikatoLinuxUsersGroup/events/231330392/

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Norton Bans kernel.org
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 24 May '16

24 May '16

The screenshot from the original report <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/05/24/norton_bans_kernel_dot_org/> shows “Computer Threats: 4” from the kernel.org site. Though it seems, since the report, Norton have fixed it to show no threats any more.

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Meetings tonight?
by Chris McClimans 24 May '16

24 May '16

Meetup.com doesn't show anything scheduled

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Supercomputing Is Hard, Reproducibility Is Harder
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 23 May '16

23 May '16

<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/05/23/the_underbelly_of_simulation_scienc…> Their next step, to make the work easier for other researchers to replicate their results, was a replication study on other packages... That's where things got painful, they write: to get where they expected to get needed “three years of dedicated work that encountered a dozen ways that things can go wrong, conquered one after another, to arrive finally at (approximately) the same findings and a whole new understanding of what it means to do “reproducible research” in computational fluid dynamics.”

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Oracle v. Google draws to a close, jury sent home until next week
by Peter Reutemann 19 May '16

19 May '16

"Presentation of evidence in the Oracle v. Google trial ended today, and US District Judge William Alsup has sent the jury home for a long weekend. On Monday, the jury members will come back to hear closing arguments and begin their deliberations." More information on the trial can be found here: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/05/oracle-v-google-draws-to-a-close… 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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Ongoing Collapse In PC Sales
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 18 May '16

18 May '16

PC unit shipments are down by a third on volumes of just a few years ago, while revenues have shrunk even more <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/05/18/pcmarket2016q1/>. Not sure if that includes tablets: not that it would probably help, nowadays...

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200GB MicroSD for $120nzd
by Chris McClimans 18 May '16

18 May '16

Not bad: http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Ultra-200GB-Micro-SDSDQUAN-200G-G4A/dp/B00V62… and they get cheaper as you get smaller, less than half that for 128GB. -chris

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Google Dorking
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 17 May '16

17 May '16

Fun search terms for finding documents that should never have been made public: <http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/05/google-dorking-when-pii-and-exploit…>.

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Raspberry Pi Zero gains camera support, keeps the $5 price
by Peter Reutemann 17 May '16

17 May '16

"When the Raspberry Pi Foundation launched the credit-card sized Zero, it stressed that the DIY computing board would not be as capable as the rest of the Pi family. But if there's one thing we've learned about the Raspberry Pi, it's that there's always room for improvement. Today, the Zero has received its first major hardware upgrade since its hugely successful launch in November: a camera connector. The new addition works very nicely with the two new Sony imaging modules announced last month and the board retains its $5 (£4) price." -- source: http://www.engadget.com/2016/05/16/raspberry-pi-zero-camera-module/ 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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Open-Source VPU-Side Bootloader For Raspberry π
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 17 May '16

17 May '16

The Raspberry π has been open-source from the beginning in every respect except one: the earliest stages of booting are actually managed by the “VPU” graphics chip, not by the ARM CPU. And the bootloader has been a proprietary firmware blob with no source code available. What made it worse was that the VPU has control over the CPU, not the other way round. Now it looks like that may be changing <http://phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Raspberry-Pi-Bootloader>.

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Using Intel’s Xeon Phi Under Linux
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 17 May '16

17 May '16

Some researchers at the Czech Technical University in Prague have been using an Intel Xeon Phi co-processor with Gentoo Linux, and have written up their experiences as a guide for others <http://phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Intel-Xeon-Phi-Gentoo>.

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YubiKey Replaces Open-Source Encryption With Proprietary Version
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 16 May '16

16 May '16

The latest version of the YubiKey no longer uses OpenPGP <https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160515/02094934446/bad-news-two-factor-…>.

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Ubuntu 16.04 proves even an LTS release can live at Linux’s bleeding edge
by Peter Reutemann 16 May '16

16 May '16

'A disappointing trend has become clear to Linux users in recent years. Whenever Canonical offers a new Ubuntu Long Term Support (LTS) release, it tends to be conservative in nature. (See our Ubuntu 14.04 review, which earned a "Missing the boat on big changes" headline.) Apparently no one wants to try to support a brand new, potentially buggy piece of code for half a decade. The last few Ubuntu releases haven't been LTS rollouts, yet Vivid Vervet (15.04) and Wily Werewolf (15.10) also short-changed users in the way of new features. So when Canonical officially released the latest Ubuntu LTS version (Ubuntu 16.04 or Xenial Xerus) this spring, similar expectations loomed. Frankly, this could potentially be the most boring Ubuntu release to date. Thankfully, perception hasn't matched reality this time around for Ubuntu users. Ubuntu 16.04 is in fact the most exciting release Canonical has put out in recent memory. And after using it for the last few weeks, this may even be the best release Canonical has presented to date.' -- source: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/05/ubuntu-16-04-proves-e… 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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Raspbian Linux OS Gets Major Update, Adds Bluetooth Support to Pi 3
by Peter Reutemann 14 May '16

14 May '16

"The Raspberry Pi 3 was launched with built-in chip for Bluetooth and Wi-Fi support, however, software support for Bluetooth was lacking until now. The drivers were there, but today's update to the Raspbian Linux distribution adds much-needed GUI tools to help you establish Bluetooth connections. Another cool addition is a new backup tool. There are other improvements as well including the mouse settings, and the ability to empty the wastebasket through right-clicking as seen below (yes, seriously). There is even a new shutdown dialog, something even casual users should notice." -- source: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/16/05/13/1740218 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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Heart Surgery Stalled For Five Minutes Thanks To Errant Anti-Virus Scan
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 13 May '16

13 May '16

<https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160506/07161334360/heart-surgery-stalle…> "...the antivirus froze access to crucial data acquired during the heart catheterization. Unable to access real-time data, the app crashed spectacularly."

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Could someone help with setting up a computer with linux
by Michelle 13 May '16

13 May '16

Hi, My name's Michelle. I've been using Linux on and off for the last few years. If this has not been sent to your LUG mailing list (if you have one) could you please send it to that or to all the people in your LUG please? I'm looking for someone who would help me set up a computer with linux on it. I had a Dell on which I set up Puppy with no problem whatsoever. The computer died and so then I took the puppy distro and the other disto I'd bought (can't remember what) and tried to install them on 2 older computers I had but it didn't work. I don't know why, maybe it was because one of the distros was on a stick and not compatible or maybe both computer hard drives were stuffed? After that I bought a mini-pc (I think it was supposed to run linux) but it didn't work at all. Then I bought a tablet but after a month or two it stopped working or pretty much? Stopped working. So I just used a phone for about a year and last year bought a brand new Toshiba laptop. The problem with this was two fold: 1. It was a laptop. 2. It was a Toshiba (oh how I hate Toshiba) I had known that not all computers were readily compatible with linux but after my easy experience with the Dell I wasn't too concerned. I bought two linux distros on different media and hoped/assumed? that something would work – it didn't. I bought another say 2 or 3 distros and managed to get the Mint to install on this Toshiba. It wasn't until after this annoying endeavor that I found out online that: - laptops are less compatible than desktops with linux and that - Toshiba out of the maybe top 6 or 8 computer manufacturers is consistantly about the least compatible with linux ( I HATE TOSHIBA) I don't happen to have a few spear thousand dollars sitting around to enable me to buy a computer and try and set it up with the distros I want, find it dosen't work, buy another computer, find it doesn't work, buy another and finally find one that works with the distros I want. So I am sending this message to basically all the Linux users groups in NZ and hoping someone can help me set up a computer with the two linux distros I want. I don't know how that would work. Maybe someone is about to buy a new computer and can try these distros before they put theirs on, maybe someone has a partition on their computer that is spare and can try it there, maybe they own a computer shop or work in a computer shop or at a university or polytech with computers or computer parts around. So for anyone who may be willing to help me here is what I would like: - a desktop (not the modern ones that are a computer plus other thing/s but just a computer - not a toshiba - Whonix to run on top of Qubes. Whonix is great for anonimity and Qubes is designed for security/safety. - I have a DrayTek vigor 120 modem. I connect it via DSL. When looking into whonix I read that it is complex to configure and setup, so I was hoping that you might have such a modem or access to one and set it up with whonix and then tell me how you did it. - I don't want the computer to come with wifi or bluetooth or any similar thing. I don't want it just not running, I don't want it there at all. - I'm wanting to install 3 old encyclopedias. I was reading about the new versions online and people were recommending old ones. I've bought Encarta 2004, 2001 and Encyclopaedia Britannica '98. To run them on I've bought Windows 98 second edition and Windows NT (first edition?). If you have or could borrow these windows OS could you see if you could get them running in whonix or qubes? - One or both of the encyclopedias need 2 DVD players so I'd like at least 2 DVD players with one being a recorder. - I'm not looking for a high end computer. As long as it will play youtube, that's fast enough. BUT I would appreciate hearing any recommendation about if I just add such and such for $100 or $150 it would go much faster. I'd like 500GB hard drive at least and I've been recommended to get 8GB RAM at least. I wouldn't buy the computer off you but rather if you could tell me what computer/computer parts worked, I'd pay up to $150 for the info. If 10 different people told me what worked of course I couldn't pay 10 different people $150. I am sending this to: the wlug, Glen Ogilvie at nelg(a)linuxsolutions.co.nz in Auckland, the Welly LUG through hugh(a)davenport.net.nz, nzlug(a)lists.nzoss.org.nz and Wellington LUG through jethro.carr(a)jethrocarr.com. If you know of any active LUG that I have missed or anyone else that might be willing to assist me could you please pass this onto them? My email is michelle400(a)orcon.net.nz. If this is posted to a mailing list (I've never used one before) and I don't reply in a week could you get back to me on my email? Thank you to anyone willing to help Michelle Gorringe.

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BitKeeper Becomes Open-Source
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 10 May '16

10 May '16

BitKeeper was the distributed version-control system that Linus Torvalds and the other kernel developers were using over a decade ago. It was a proprietary product, but the Linux folk were allowed use of it for no charge, under a licence that prohibited reverse-engineering, and that obligated them to uprade to newer versions with whatever new licence terms the company wanted to impose. It was a stoush over this reverse-engineering prohibition that led to BitMover giving notice it was cancelling this agreement, which in turn led to Torvalds creating Git. And the rest, as they say, is history. <http://phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=BitKeeper-Open-Source>

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Debian Dropping Support For Older CPUs
by Peter Reutemann 09 May '16

09 May '16

'The Debian project supports a wide range of hardware architectures, including 32-bit x86 CPUs. Changes are happening in Debian's development branches which will make older versions of the 32-bit architecture obsolete. Ben Hutchings provides the details: "Last year it was decided to increase the minimum CPU features for the i386 architecture to 686-class in the Stretch release cycle. This means dropping support for 586-class and hybrid 586/686 processors. (Support for 486-class processors was dropped, somewhat accidentally, in Squeeze.) This was implemented in the Linux kernel packages starting with Linux 4.3, which was uploaded to Unstable in December last year. In case you missed that change, GCC for i386 has recently been changed to target 686-class processors and is generating code that will crash on other processors. Any such systems still running Testing or Unstable will need to be switched to run Stable (Jessie)."' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/16/05/09/028259 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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Leading-Edge Technology ... Or Not
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 07 May '16

07 May '16

To service the McLaren F1 supercar, McLaren needs a Compaq LTE 5280 laptop which hasn’t been manufactured in about 20 years <http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/3/11576032/mclaren-f1-compaq-laptop-maintena…>. The laptop has a special CA (“Conditional-Access”) card, and "The CA card is an interface between the laptop software (which is DOS-based) and the car." .. the CA card was used as custom hardware as part of an integrated system for security and copy protection. In other words, this is part of a system to ensure that nobody but McLaren can access the car software. Their attempt at vendor lock-in has led to vendor lock-in being imposed on them.

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embedded projects
by rowan schischka 06 May '16

06 May '16

there is about five weeks of lectures left at uni so looking to get some things together now due to international shipping delays. does anyone want to share shipping costs on an intel curie? http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/do-it-yourself/arduino-101.html I would also appreciate some buying advice. there are a number of retailers but the cheapest one only sells instore in north america. I also need to purchase a small suitable rechargeable battery. also where is the maker scene at waikato? -- Rowan Schischka

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UK Spooks Say: Don’t Keep Resetting Your Passwords!?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 06 May '16

06 May '16

On World Password Day (who knew?), the Communications-Electronics Security Group (CESG), part of GCHQ, is telling sysadmins not to force their users to keep resetting their passwords <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/05/05/stop_resetting_your_password_says_u…>. The result, according to CESG, is that we are more likely to write our password down. Or forget the password altogether, forcing service desks to reset them, chewing up time and resources. So what was wrong with writing them down, again? You know how to keep your cash, credit cards and house keys safe; why can’t you keep your written passwords in the same place? The last three paragraphs of the article are, um, worth reading carefully...

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Microsoft unveils new effort to make its documentation great again ... or does it?
by rowan schischka 06 May '16

06 May '16

>Just one problem: while Microsoft itself uses the term ?open sourced? I think you will find that Microsoft will make its own definition of the word 'open'. for example for years they have been calling their bulk license purchasing plan the 'Open License' (OLP, OLV, OVS, etc). Their Open is not GPL. They want hobbyists and students to tinker with their products and if you're not making money they wont bother you. for example they give charities and schools dirt cheap pricing because they just want everyone to use their products. Their bottom line is; if you make money off our product we want our cut of that to return to our investors.

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TLS Proxies: Insecure By Design
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 06 May '16

06 May '16

A “TLS Proxy” short-circuits the security of TLS/SSL connections so it can do deep-packet inspection on encrypted connections. This kind of thing always seemed dodgy. And now it turns out that is so for good reason: these devices are full of holes <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/05/05/tls_proxies_are_insecure/>. The paper mentioned there concentrated on consumer/retail devices. But it’s unlikely ones designed for business/enterprise use are going to fare any better...

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Unity 8 And Snaps Are Conquering The Ubuntu Desktop After Ubuntu 16.10
by Peter Reutemann 05 May '16

05 May '16

"Today is the last day of the Ubuntu Online Summit 2016, and the Ubuntu developers discussed the future of the Ubuntu Desktop for Ubuntu 16.10 (Yakkety Yak) and beyond. It looks like Snaps (Snappy) and Unity 8 with Mir are slowly conquering the Ubuntu Desktop, at least according to Canonical's Will Cooke, Ubuntu Desktop Manager. Work has already begun on pushing these new and modern technologies to the Ubuntu Desktop, as Ubuntu 16.04 LTS has just received support for installing Snaps from the Ubuntu Snappy Store. Canonical's Will Cooke has mentioned the fact that the Unity 7 desktop enters its twilight years, which means that it gets fewer features and it's being reduced to only critical and OEM work. This is because Unity 8 desktop is getting all the attention now, and it will become the default desktop session somewhere after Ubuntu 16.10 (Yakkety Yak)." -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/16/05/05/2038256 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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Microsoft unveils new effort to make its documentation great again ... or does it?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 05 May '16

05 May '16

<http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/05/microsoft-unveils-new…>: Some teams within Microsoft, such as those developing ASP.NET and .NET Core, had already open sourced their documentation. On the new site, all documentation will be handled similarly. Every article will have an "edit" button enabling changes and fixes to be proposed. These changes will be handled as pull requests on GitHub, with the documentation itself using the popular Markdown markup language. Just one problem: while Microsoft itself uses the term “open sourced” <https://docs.microsoft.com/teamblog/introducing-docs-microsoft-com/>: All documentation on docs.microsoft.com is open sourced and designed to allow community contributions. Nowhere does it actually spell out what the copyright licence is. Clicking on the “Terms of Use” link takes you here <https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/legal/intellectualproperty/copyright/defaul…>, where it says Personal and Non-Commercial Use Limitation Unless otherwise specified, the Services are for your personal and non-commercial use. You may not modify, copy, distribute, transmit, display, perform, reproduce, publish, license, create derivative works from, transfer, or sell any information, software, products or services obtained from the Services.

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Proprietary Software Riddled With Old Open-Source Vulnerabilities
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 04 May '16

04 May '16

No big news, really: closed-source software, even if it is built on open-source components, will inevitably accumulate long-standing bugs that never get fixed. And sometimes the bugs have security implications. This report from Black Duck uses the term “commercial” software, but it’s quite clear they mean “proprietary” software, i.e. closed-source <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/05/04/commercial_software_chokkas_with_an…>. The telling phrase in the report is “visibility into the components that are included in their code base is required”. How would you *not* have such visibility, if the source of your product is open? A lot of companies may hate copyleft licences, but at least they force a level of transparency that makes this kind of thing much harder to cover up.

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Hard Drive Warranties Are Now Specifying Data-Write Limits?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 04 May '16

04 May '16

It used to be that warranties for hard drives were for some specified number of years, it didn’t matter how much load they were under (compare SSDs). But it seems that is now changing, as capacities are pushed to the point where ever more creative strategies are needed to get the devices to work at all <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/05/03/when_did_hard_drives_get_workload_r…>.

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The Tao Of Programming
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 04 May '16

04 May '16

<http://www.mit.edu/~xela/tao.html>: 4.3 The Master was explaining the nature of Tao to one of his novices. "The Tao is embodied in all software -- regardless of how insignificant," said the Master. "Is the Tao in a hand-held calculator?" asked the novice. "It is," came the reply. "Is the Tao in a video game?" asked the novice. "It is even in a video game," said the Master. "Is the Tao in the DOS for a personal computer?" asked the novice. The Master coughed and shifted his position slightly. "The lesson is over for today," he said.

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Aging and bloated OpenSSL is purged of 2 high-severity bugs
by Peter Reutemann 03 May '16

03 May '16

"Maintainers of the OpenSSL cryptographic library have patched high-severity holes that could make it possible for attackers to decrypt login credentials or execute malicious code on Web servers. The updates were released Tuesday morning for both versions 1.0.1 and 1.0.2 of OpenSSL, which a large portion of the Internet relies on to cryptographically protect sensitive Web and e-mail traffic using the transport layer security protocol. OpenSSL advisories labeled the severity of both vulnerabilities "high," meaning the updates fixing them should be installed as soon as possible. The fixes bring the latest supported versions to 1.0.1t and 1.0.2h." -- source: http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/05/aging-and-bloated-openssl-is-purged… 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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Huge number of sites imperiled by critical image-processing vulnerability
by Peter Reutemann 03 May '16

03 May '16

"A large number of websites are vulnerable to a simple attack that allows hackers to execute malicious code hidden inside booby-trapped images. The vulnerability resides in ImageMagick, a widely used image-processing library that's supported by PHP, Ruby, NodeJS, Python, and about a dozen other languages. Many social media and blogging sites, as well as a large number of content management systems, directly or indirectly rely on ImageMagick-based processing so they can resize images uploaded by end users." -- source: http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/05/easily-exploited-bug-exposes-huge-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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fast good unlimited internet
by Ian Young 03 May '16

03 May '16

As per the subject it sounds great. Alas this is New Zealand, home of the rapacious duopoly, and one cable outwards. So you won't be looking at 'Spark' (aka former monoply Telecom) or global corp Vodafone. The fast thing has got a bit better since the powers that be finally fibred up at taxayer expense at least in part. Or so I hear. Ultra fast is probably an exaggeration compared with benchmark nations. Long white cloud has some issues with population density and geography. However it sounds like there may be a local option. Tauranga is an opulent region so there must be some money in it for small providers. Until a bigger fish appears bent on acquisition.

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Art Or Spam?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 03 May '16

03 May '16

A bot has been hanging around 3D-printing site Thingiverse, generating random and bizarre/surreal remixes of objects posted to the site by others <http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/05/that-time-a-bot-invaded-thingiverse-…>. The creators of the bot recently showed some of the results at an exhibition. Is “confrontational art” just another term for “trolling”? Opinions about the bot’s contribution to the community seem mixed...

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Tauranga ISPs
by Chris McClimans 03 May '16

03 May '16

Any suggestions for fast, good, unlimited broadband? Maybe with a chance for static IPs?

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Ubuntu Quietly Raises Install Image Size to 2GB
by Peter Reutemann 02 May '16

02 May '16

'You can expect to see a larger Ubuntu desktop installation image by the time the Yakkety Yak yips out. Developers are currently debating the exact size limits that official flavours will adhere to, with some favouring a 2GB hard limit while others are looking to go full-DVD size at 4.7GB+. Canonical's Steven Langasek explains the plans for Ubuntu 16.10 Yakkety Yak: "I've finally gone ahead and bumped the limit on Ubuntu desktop images to 2GB for a minimally-sized USB stick; this gives us a new limit that I think we will care about, while also leaving us headroom so we're not constantly fighting it back down to the line." The Ubuntu ISO is supposed to be around the 1GB mark but has creeped past this in recent releases. The current Ubuntu 16.04 LTS desktop .iso is 1.4GB.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/16/05/02/1035248 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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From Paintbox to PC: How London became the home of Hollywood VFX
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 01 May '16

01 May '16

Nice article about the video-effects business, from the Quantel Paintbox to present-day CGI <http://arstechnica.com/the-multiverse/2016/05/how-london-became-the-home-of…>, from Ars Technica UK. Betting on Moore’s Law: Framestore tried to predict when technology would allow them to charge what their clients were willing to pay, and adjust the business accordingly. It was a risky, yet incredibly shrewd plan—and it paid off. This same company went on to make “Walking With Dinosaurs”. Moving away from the legendary SGI workstations of the early 1990s, towards more commodity hardware nowadays: Today, VFX studios are powered by Intel processors, Nvidia graphics cards (all the VFX studios I spoke to used Nvidia graphics cards, citing reasons of driver stability), and Linux operating systems. These parts are just as accessible to consumers as they are to businesses: one only need look at the rise of YouTube and high-quality homemade videos to see just how far the commoditisation of VFX technology has come. But those Nvidia cards are mainly used for on-screen previews, not the final renders: Like the rest of the VFX industry, Pixar is yet to introduce GPUs into its render farms, preferring instead to use them in local or farm-based workstations for quick and dirty lighting previews. It faces the same issue as everyone else: GPUs simply don't have enough memory. Each frame in a final render requires as much 64GB of system memory, with films like Avatar pushing 128GB. The highest-end Nvidia graphics card comes equipped with just 12GB of memory. The article has a strange reluctance to use the term “renderer”. It describes Arnold as “a cutting edge lighting program” and Renderman as “a way to flesh out an existing 3D model or animation with interactive lighting and shading”. One quote I found revealing: At most VFX studios the final render is done at around 2K resolution. It doesn’t qualify this by saying this is for TV work, not for film work. So is 2K enough even for film work? And just like when they moved from TV to film, studios like MPC, Framestore, and Pixar are waiting for technology to catch up with their creative ambitions, even if they're not all convinced 4K is the answer. Meanwhile, some people are managing 4K renders <https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=blender+foundation+4k> just fine...

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