March 2017 - wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

An Ordinary User’s Adventures In Linux
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 30 Sep '17

30 Sep '17

I helped an elderly friend set up his new PC yesterday. His previous machine, over a decade old, was running Windows XP. I had set up an Ubuntu dual-boot a few years back, and he liked playing the games. But then the Linux boot stopped working--there was a message to the effect “hd0 out of disk”, which sounded like a GRUB problem (“hd0” being a GRUB disk name, not a Linux disk name). I booted up SystemRescueCD, and found that disk space was ample. I did an fsck on the Linux volume, and found no filesystem problems. I ran a badblocks scan, and it reported several bad sectors, though oddly they only seemed to be in the Windows partition (if I interpreted the numbers correctly). Naturally I searched online, but the hits I found for that error message didn’t seem very helpful. Reinstalling GRUB didn’t help, so I concluded there were likely other hardware problems, so time for a new machine. He got an entry-level dual-core AMD box from PBTech--their own house build, in a CoolerMaster case--for well under a grand. Nothing fancy, but good enough for his needs--mainly Web browsing, e-mail, a little bit of word processing, and those games. The PBTech box came without an OS. He could have got Windows 10 for it, but considering he would be facing a learning curve coming from XP regardless, I suggested going 100% Linux for all his daily needs, to see if that would work. He could always spend the $160-odd extra on Windows later if need be. So I set it up with Linux Mint, since that seems to be everybody’s favourite :). He was already using Firefox on Windows, so moving all his Web bookmarks across was easy. The Mint install put an icon for Thunderbird on the desktop by default, so I decided to try that for e-mail. Getting his address book across from Outlook Express was fairly straightforward, once I figured out how to map the exported CSV field names correctly. The mail messages were slightly more fiddly, but I found this extension <https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/importexporttools/> which directly loads Microsoft’s .dbx files, and that seemed to work OK. Then he wanted to play CDs. When we put in an audio CD, it came up with options to run Banshee (media player) or Brasero (disc burner). The Banshee media player wouldn’t play the CD directly, it insisted on ripping it to the hard drive first. This was not really what he wanted. I had a look round, and found KsCD, which will indeed play audio CDs without trying to rip them to audio files first. As far as I know, this is the only GUI Linux app that can do so. So, day 1 ended on a reasonably successful note. He was already noticing how much faster the new machine was. So we’ll see how it goes from here...

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If-I-Buy-It-Do-I-Own-It Chapter 339: Tractors
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 31 Mar '17

31 Mar '17

Owners of John Deere tractors are resorting to pirated firmware in order to gain the ability to repair their own property: <https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170322/04582036973/tractor-owners-using…> Are farmers in NZ impacted by any of this? I see that John Deere tractors are indeed sold here.

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Phrase Of The Week: “Necessary Hashtags”
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 28 Mar '17

28 Mar '17

UK Home Secretary Amber Rudd’s immortal quotation has spawned a T-shirt: <https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170327/20224837016/limited-edition-gear…>. Do you have the necessary hashtags? Do they come in a nice series of tubes?

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After 20 Years, OpenSSL Will Change To Apache License 2.0, Seeks Pasts Contributors
by Peter Reutemann 26 Mar '17

26 Mar '17

'After nearly 20 years and 31,000 commits, OpenSSL wants to change to Apache License v2.0. They're now tracking down all 400 contributors to sign new license agreements, a process expected to take several months. Slashdot reader rich_salz shares links to OpenSSL's official announcement (and their agreement-collecting web site). "This re-licensing activity will make OpenSSL, already the world's most widely-used FOSS encryption software, more convenient to incorporate in the widest possible range of free and open source software," said Mishi Choudhary, Legal Director of Software Freedom Law Center and counsel to OpenSSL. "OpenSSL's team has carefully prepared for this re-licensing, and their process will be an outstanding example of 'how to do it right.'" Click through for some comments on the significance of this move from the Linux Foundation, Intel, and Oracle.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/17/03/26/2258218 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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Ubuntu Linux 17.04 'Zesty Zapus' Final Beta Now Available For Download
by Peter Reutemann 26 Mar '17

26 Mar '17

'The final beta of Ubuntu 17.04 'Zesty Zapus' became available for download Thursday. While it is never a good idea to run pre-release software on production machines, Canonical is claiming that it should be largely bug free at this point. In other words, if you understand the risks, it should be a fairly safe. Home users aside, this is a good opportunity for administrators to conduct testing prior to the official release next month. "The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce the final beta release of the Ubuntu 17.04 Desktop, Server, and Cloud products. Codenamed 'Zesty Zapus', 17.04 continues Ubuntu's proud tradition of integrating the latest and greatest open source technologies into a high-quality, easy-to-use Linux distribution," says Adam Conrad, Canonical. "The team has been hard at work through this cycle, introducing new features and fixing bugs."' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/17/03/25/2127238 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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meeting next Monday
by Peter Reutemann 23 Mar '17

23 Mar '17

Hi everyone We have a WLUG meeting coming up next Monday: "William Mckee has been to nz.js.con recently and will talk about the A/V setup used for recording the presentations: hdmi2usb" https://www.meetup.com/WaikatoLinuxUsersGroup/events/237234774/ BTW It's not too late if you still want to present something! Just email me. 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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GNOME 3.24 Released
by Peter Reutemann 22 Mar '17

22 Mar '17

'GNOME 3.24 just finished its six-month development cycle, and it's now the most advanced stable version of the modern and popular desktop environment used by default in numerous GNU/Linux distributions. It was developed since October 2016 under the GNOME 3.23.x umbrella, during which it received numerous improvements. Prominent new features of the GNOME 3.24 desktop environment include a Night Light functionality that promises to automatically shift the colors of your display to the warmer end of the spectrum after sunset, and a brand-new GNOME Control Center with redesigned Users, Keyboard and Mouse, Online Accounts, Bluetooth, and Printer panels. As for the GNOME apps, we can mention that the Nautilus file manager now lets users browse files as root (system administrator), GNOME Photos imitates Darktable's exposure and blacks adjustment tool, GNOME Music comes with ownCloud integration and lets you edit tags, and GNOME Calendar finally brings the Week view. New apps like GNOME Recipes are also part of this release. The full release notes can be viewed here. Softpedia notes in conclusion: "As mentioned before, it will take at least a couple of weeks for the new GNOME 3.24 packages to land on the stable repositories of your favorite distro, which means that you'll most probably be able to upgrade from GNOME 3.22 when the first point release, GNOME 3.24.1, is out on April 12, 2017."' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/17/03/22/205210 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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Firefox for Linux is Now Netflix Compatible
by Peter Reutemann 22 Mar '17

22 Mar '17

'For a while, Netflix was not available for traditional Linux-based operating systems, meaning users were unable to enjoy the popular streaming service without booting into Windows. This was due to the company's reliance on Microsoft Silverlight. Since then, Netflix adopted HTML5, and it made Google Chrome and Chromium for Linux capable of playing the videos. Unfortunately, Firefox -- the open source browser choice for many Linux users -- was not compatible. Today this changes, however, as Mozilla's offering is now compatible with Netflix!' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/17/03/22/1510220 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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suggestions for upcoming meeting?
by Peter Reutemann 19 Mar '17

19 Mar '17

Hi everyone Any suggestions for the upcoming meeting? https://www.meetup.com/WaikatoLinuxUsersGroup/events/237234774/ Thanks. 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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Big Surprise: HTTPS Interception Middleboxes Weaken Your Security
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 17 Mar '17

17 Mar '17

Some companies run boxes that intercept outgoing TLS/SSL connections, by using their own certificates that employees’ machines are configured to accept, in order to enforce policies on access to outside sites. Trouble is, many of these boxes introduce their own vulnerabilities into the system, by allowing new kinds of attacks from outside. <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/17/are_you_undermining_your_web_secur…>

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Microsoft Locks Ryzen, Kaby Lake Users Out of Updates On Windows 7, 8.1
by Peter Reutemann 17 Mar '17

17 Mar '17

'In a move that will shock a lot of people, someone at Microsoft decided to deny Windows 7/8.1 updates to the users of the following CPU architectures: Intel seventh (7th)-generation processors (Kaby Lake); AMD "Bristol Ridge" (Zen/Ryzen); Qualcomm "8996." It's impossible to find any justification for this decision to halt support for the x86 architectures listed above because you can perfectly run MS-DOS on them. Perhaps, Microsoft has decided that the process of foisting Windows 10 isn't running at full steam, so the company created this purely artificial limitation. I expect it to be cancelled soon after a wide backlash from corporate customers. KitGuru notes that users may encounter the following error message when they attempt to update their OS: "Your PC uses a processor that isn't supported on this version of Windows." The only resolution is to upgrade to Windows 10.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/17/03/16/2047215 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 Preps Security Lifeboat, Yells: Ubuntu 12.04 Hold-Outs, Get In
by Peter Reutemann 15 Mar '17

15 Mar '17

'Canonical is extending the deadline for security updates for paying users of its five-year-old Ubuntu 12.04 LTS -- a first. Ubuntu 12.04 LTS will become the first Long Term Support release of Canonical's Linux to get Extended Security Maintenance (ESM). There are six LTS editions. All others have been end-of-lifed -- and given no security reprieve. LTS editions of Ubuntu Linux are released every two years. Desktop support runs for three years and the server edition receives security patches and updates for a period of five years. Security updates for 12.04 were scheduled to run out on April 28, 2017 but that now won't happen for those on Canonical's Ubuntu Advantage programme. They'll now receive important security fixes for the kernel and "most essential" userspace packages on their servers running 12.04. In what's shaping up to be Canonical's Windows XP moment over at Microsoft, the Linux spinner rolled out the lifeline because customers are clinging to 12.04.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/17/03/15/1754232 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 DoNotPay To DoNotDeport?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 14 Mar '17

14 Mar '17

Last year, a 19-year-old student named Josh Browder released a chatbot that helped people avoid paying illegal parking fines. Now he is adapting the same technology to areas like compensation for flight delays, the rights of those who are HIV-positive, and refugees trying to cope with foreign legal systems <https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170308/10393436870/chatbot-that-helped-…>.

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Debian Update: Stretch Frozen, Bug-Squashing Parties Planned
by Peter Reutemann 12 Mar '17

12 Mar '17

'"Debian project leader Mehdi Dogguy has written a status update concerning the work going on for the first two months of 2017," reports Phoronix. An anonymous reader quotes their report: So far this year Debian 9.0 Stretch has entered its freeze, bug squashing parties are getting underway for Stretch, the DebConf Committee is now an official team within Debian, a broad Debian Project roadmap is in the early stages of talk, and more. Bug-Squashing Parties have been scheduled this week in Germany and Brazil, with at least two more happening in May in Paris and Zurich, and for current Debian contributors, "Debian is willing to reimburse up to $100 (or equivalent in your local currency) for your travel and accommodation expenses for participating in Bug Squashing Parties..." writes Dogguy, adding "If there are no Bug Squashing Parties next to your city, can you organize one?"' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/17/03/12/2210215 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 'USG' Firewalls Protect USB Drives From Malicious Attacks
by Peter Reutemann 12 Mar '17

12 Mar '17

'A developer has created the USG, "a small, portable hardware USB firewall...to prevent malicious USB sticks and devices laden with malware from infecting your computer." An anonymous reader quotes ZDNet: The problem is that most computers automatically trust every USB device that's plugged in, which means malicious code can run without warning... Cars, cash registers, and some ATMs also come with USB ports, all of which can be vulnerable to cyberattacks from a single USB stick. That's where the USG firewall comes in...a simple hardware serial link that only accepts a very few select number of safe commands, which prevents the device from executing system commands or intercepting network traffic. That means the data can flow from the USB device, but [it] effectively blocks other USB exploits. The firmware has been open sourced, and the technical specifications have also been released online "to allow anyone to build their own from readily available development boards."' -- source: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/17/03/11/1658238 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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Munich's IT Lead: 'No Compelling Reason' To Switch Back To Windows From Linux
by Peter Reutemann 12 Mar '17

12 Mar '17

'"The man who runs Munich's central IT says there is no practical reason for the city to write off millions of euros and years of work to ditch its Linux-based OS for Windows," reports TechRepublic. Long-time Slashdot reader Qbertino summarizes a German-language article: Karl-Heinz Schneider, lead of Munich's local system house company IT(a)M, goes on to claim, "We do not see pressing technical reasons to switch to MS and MS Office... The council [in their recent plans] didn't even follow the analysts' suggestion to stick with using LibreOffice." Furthermore, Schneider stated that "System failures that angered citizens in recent years never were related to the LiMux project, but due to new bureaucratic procedures..." and apparently decisions by unqualified personnel at the administrative level, as Munich's administration itself states.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/17/03/11/0142247 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 Foundation Chief: Businesses 'Will Fail' If They Don't Use Open Source Code
by Peter Reutemann 12 Mar '17

12 Mar '17

'First Vint Cert said there's a "thread of openness" that runs throughout the internet, adding that "the internet, itself, has open characteristics" and thrives on "permissionless innovation." And Eric Brewer, vice president of infrastructure at Google, touched on the same themes, according to Tech Republic. "Linux, Brewer said, won some of the early internet wars because it was open, but also because it was the most innovative of its time. He also said that companies should work with open source for the value of the ecosystem and community, not just the value of the code." Then Linux Foundation executive director Jim Zemlin told the audience that business models were already changing to include open source, and ultimately made the argument that organizations that "don't harvest the shared innovation" of open source "will fail." ' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/17/03/12/0317215 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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Netflix access using Linux
by Roderick Aldridge 11 Mar '17

11 Mar '17

Does Spark prevent clients using Netflix under Linux? If so is there a work-around? Thanks for any info. Rod

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Sensible Password Rules
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 11 Mar '17

11 Mar '17

NIST came out last year with some guidelines on how to choose passwords <https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2016/08/18/nists-new-password-rules-what-y…>. The “dos” should not be too surprising, but it is worth mentioning the “don’ts”: * No restrictions on what characters are allowed * No password hints * No knowledge-based authentication * No expiration without some good reason Also, they are no longer recommending the use of SMS for two-factor authentication. I wonder what you should use instead?

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Look before you paste from a website to terminal
by Peter Reutemann 11 Mar '17

11 Mar '17

'Most of the time when we see a code snippet online to do something, we often blindly copy paste it to the terminal. Even the tech savy ones just see it on the website before copy pasting. Here is why you shouldn't do this.' -- source: https://lifepluslinux.blogspot.co.nz/2017/01/look-before-you-paste-from-web… Hint: hidden commands thanks to HTML/CSS. 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 Continues Porting Visual C++ To Linux
by Peter Reutemann 11 Mar '17

11 Mar '17

'Long-time Slashdot reader Billly Gates shared some news from Microsoft's Visual C++ blog: Visual Studio 2017 now lets developers write C++ code for Linux desktops, servers, and other devices without an extension, targeting specific architectures, including ARM: Visual Studio will automatically copy and remotely build your sources and can launch your application with the debugger... Today Visual Studio only supports building remotely on the Linux target machine. It is not limited to specific Linux distros, but we do have dependencies on the presence of some tools. Specifically, we need openssh-server, g++, gdb and gdbserver. ' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/17/03/11/0431252 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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US ISP Verizon Wireless To Stop Giving Out Static IPv4 Addresses
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 10 Mar '17

10 Mar '17

New business customers with Verizon Wireless will no longer get static IPv4 addresses. Instead, they will get “persistent prefix” IPv6 addresses <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/10/verizon_running_out_of_ipv4_addres…>. I assume “persistent prefix” means they get a fixed value for the top 48 bits, and they can do what they like with the bottom 80 bits. This /48 subnet allocation seems to be the common thing for IPv6.

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Engineering Around Social Media Border Searches
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 08 Mar '17

08 Mar '17

In the wake of the plan floated by the US Government to demand passwords to social media accounts from people wanting to enter the country, here <http://freedom-to-tinker.com/2017/02/10/engineering-around-social-media-bor…> is a discussion of some likely countermeasures that should still give the cover of plausible deniability.

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Quote Of The Week
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 08 Mar '17

08 Mar '17

“One of the reasons society hasn't destroyed itself is that people with intelligence and skills tend to not be criminals for a living. If it ever became a viable career path, we're doomed.” -- Bruce Schneier <https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2017/03/building_smarte.html>

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Litebook launches a $249 linux laptop
by Ron Dean 07 Mar '17

07 Mar '17

Presumably this is in $US -- Ron Dean Unit 61 Village Gardens 16 Rototuna Road Hamilton 3210 New Zealand Home 64 7 8493904 Mob 02102259172

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The City of Munich Might Stick With Linux
by Peter Reutemann 06 Mar '17

06 Mar '17

'Munich's "LiMux" project brought FOSS software to their city's IT administration -- until a vote last month on whether to abandon Linux and return to Windows. "Since this decision was reached, the majority of media have reported that a final call was made to halt LiMux and switch back to Microsoft software," reports the Free Software Foundation Europe. "This is, however, not an accurate representation of the outcome of the city council meeting." An anonymous reader quotes their report: The opposing parties were overruled, but the decision was amended such that the strategy document must specify which LiMux-applications will no longer be needed, the extent in which prior investments must be written off, and a rough calculation of the overall costs of the desired unification... [Only then will the city council make their final decision...] We succeeded thus far in forcing the mayor Dieter Reiter to postpone the final decision, and this was possible through the unwavering pressure created by joint efforts between The Document Foundation, KDE, OSBA, and the FSFE together with all the individuals who wrote to city council members and took the issue to the media. Although the mandate is highly suggestive in that it suggests that the existing vendor-neutral approach is to be replaced with a proprietary solution, it leaves the door open... The new mandate buys us some time. And we will keep going. Some politicians said they'd never received this much input from the public before, and the Free Software Foundation Europe says the city's issues were caused "from organizational problems, including lack of clear structures and responsibilities," which should not be attributed to the Linux operating system. "LiMux as such is still one of the best examples of how to create a vendor-neutral administration based on Free Software."' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/17/03/04/0532214 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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Litebook Launches A $249 Linux Laptop
by Peter Reutemann 06 Mar '17

06 Mar '17

'It's "like a Chromebook for Linux users on a budget," reports ZDNet. The new 2.9-pound Litebook uses Intel's Celeron N3150 processor and ships with a 14.1-inch display and a 512-gigabyte hard drive with full HD resolution (1,920 x 1,080). For $20 more they'll throw in a 32-gigabyte SSD to speed up your boot time. "Unlike Windows laptops, Litebooks are highly optimized, come without performance hogging bloatware, [are] designed to ensure your privacy, and are entirely free of malware and viruses," writes the company's web site. They also add that their new devices "are affordable, customizable, and are backwards compatible with Windows software."' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/17/03/06/0050203 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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Tim Berners-Lee Endorses DRM In HTML5, Offers Depressingly Weak Defense Of His Decision
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 02 Mar '17

02 Mar '17

Has the godfather of the Web just sold it down the river? <https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170301/03062936815/tim-berners-lee-endo…>

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