October 2019 - wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

Internal Email Shows GitHub Plans To Renew ICE Contract
by Peter Reutemann 09 Oct '19

09 Oct '19

'GitHub CEO Nat Friedman explained why the company plans to renew a contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), even though he and others at GitHub oppose ICE's policy of separating children from parents at the border, Motherboard reported on Wednesday, citing an internal GitHub email. From a report: The email shows the continuing debate within the tech industry about whether companies should work specifically with ICE, and comes as a host of other companies have dealt with employee protests over corporate involvement with ICE. "In August, the GitHub leadership team learned about a pending renewal of our product by the U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency. Since then, we have been talking with people throughout the company, based on our own personal concerns and those raised by Hubbers," Friedman's email reads, referring to GitHub employees. Evan Greer, deputy director at activism group Fight for the Future tweeted a copy of the email on Tuesday. Motherboard also separately obtained a copy of the email from a source inside GitHub. The product up for renewal is a license of GitHub Enterprise Server, an on-premises deployment of GitHub that customers can run on their own server, according to the email. ICE originally bought a license in April, 2016.' -- source: https://developers.slashdot.org/story/19/10/09/1557245 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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Twitter transgression proves why its flawed 2FA system is such a privacy trap
by Peter Reutemann 09 Oct '19

09 Oct '19

'If ever there was a surefire way to sour users against a two-factor authentication system that was already highly flawed, Twitter has found it. On Tuesday, the social media site said that it used phone numbers and email addresses provided for 2FA protection to tailor ads to users. Twitter requires users to provide a valid phone number to be eligible for 2FA protection. A working cell phone number is mandatory even when users' 2FA protection is based solely on security keys or authenticator apps, which don't rely on phone numbers to work. Deleting a phone number from a user's Twitter settings immediately withdraws account from Twitter 2FA, as I confirmed just prior to publishing this post.' -- sources: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/10/twitter-used-phone-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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'Collapse OS' Is An Open-Source Operating System For the Post-Apocalypse
by Peter Reutemann 09 Oct '19

09 Oct '19

'Collapse OS is a new open-source operating system built specifically for use during humanity's darkest days. According to its creator, software developer Virgil Dupras, Collapse OS is what the people of the future will need to reconfigure their scavenged iPhones. For now, though, he's hosting the project on GitHub and looking for contributors. Motherboard reports: According to the Collapse OS site, Dupras envisions a world where the global supply chain collapses by 2030. In this possible future -- kind of a medium-apocalypse -- populations won't be able to mass produce electronics anymore, but they'll still be an enormous source of political and social power. Anyone who can scavenge electronics and reprogram them will gain a huge advantage over those who don't. Dupras believes that the biggest problem for tech savvy post-apocalyptic people will be microcontrollers -- tiny computers embedded in circuit boards that control the functions of computer systems. Collapse OS will work with Z80 8-bit microprocessors. Though less common today than 16- and 32-bit components, the 8-bit Z80 can be found in desktop computers, cash registers, musical instruments, graphing calculators, and everything in between. In a Reddit Q&A, Dupras explained that the Z80 was chosen "because it's been in production for so long and because it's been used in so many machines, scavenger have good chances of getting their hands on it." According to the product page, Collapse OS currently can run on a homebrew Z80-based computer called the RC2014, and on Reddit Dupras said it could theoretically run on a Sega Genesis console.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/19/10/08/2036204 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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You Can Now Overclock a Raspberry Pi 4 For Some Nice Performance Gains
by Peter Reutemann 08 Oct '19

08 Oct '19

'The Raspberry Pi 4 is one of the cheapest single-board computers around. The new 4th generation is a solid performance lift over its predecessor and good bang for the buck if you're interested in learning Linux, working with embedded computing, or just want to kick back and play some retro games on an emulator. In addition, the latest version of the Raspberry Pi Foundation's Linux distribution, Raspbian Buster, comes with a new firmware revision for the tiny DIY PC that removes its 2GHz clock speed limit and allows voltage adjustments to wring out additional performance, with proper cooling of course. In testing, while there are no guarantees in overclocking, HotHardware was able to realize more than a 40% lift in their Raspberry Pi 4's processor clock speed, and a 50% boost to the GPU with an air-cooled mini case kit. Combined, they're not enough to turn the Pi 4 into your every day PC, but the performance gains are measurable and valuable. All it takes is a quick firmware update and a couple of Linux commands to dial things in.' -- source: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/19/10/08/0312213 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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Thunderbird Announces OpenPGP Support
by Peter Reutemann 08 Oct '19

08 Oct '19

'On the Mozilla Thunderbird blog it was announced that for the future Thunderbird 78 release, planned for summer 2020, they will add built-in functionality for email encryption and digital signatures using the OpenPGP standard. This addresses a feature request opened on Bugzilla almost 20 years ago and has been one of the top voted bugs for most of that period.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/19/10/08/209254 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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D-Link Home Routers Open To Remote Takeover Will Remain Unpatched
by Peter Reutemann 08 Oct '19

08 Oct '19

'D-Link won't patch a critical unauthenticated command-injection vulnerability in its routers that could allow an attacker to remotely take over the devices and execute code. Threatpost reports: The vulnerability (CVE-2019-16920) exists in the latest firmware for the DIR-655, DIR-866L, DIR-652 and DHP-1565 products, which are Wi-Fi routers for the home market. D-Link last week told Fortinet's FortiGuard Labs, which first discovered the issue in September, that all four of them are end-of-life and no longer sold or supported by the vendor (however, the models are still available as new via third-party sellers). The root cause of the vulnerability, according to Fortinet, is a lack of a sanity check for arbitrary commands that are executed by the native command-execution function. Fortinet describes this as a "typical security pitfall suffered by many firmware manufacturers." With no patch available, affected users should upgrade their devices as soon as possible. ' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/19/10/08/2016251 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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Attackers exploit 0-day vulnerability that gives full control of Android phones
by Peter Reutemann 06 Oct '19

06 Oct '19

'Attackers are exploiting a zero-day vulnerability in Google’s Android mobile operating system that can give them full control of at least 18 different phone models, including four different Pixel models, a member of Google’s Project Zero research group said on Thursday night. There’s evidence the vulnerability is being actively exploited, either by exploit developer NSO Group or one of its customers, Project Zero member Maddie Stone said in a post. NSO representatives, meanwhile, said the "exploit has nothing to do with NSO." Exploits require little or no customization to fully root vulnerable phones. The vulnerability can be exploited two ways: (1) when a target installs an untrusted app or (2) for online attacks, by combining the exploit with a second exploit targeting a vulnerability in code the Chrome browser uses to render content. “The bug is a local privilege escalation vulnerability that allows for a full compromise of a vulnerable device,” Stone wrote. “If the exploit is delivered via the Web, it only needs to be paired with a renderer exploit, as this vulnerability is accessible through the sandbox.”' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/10/attackers-exploit-0d… 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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Russian Malware 'Patches' Chrome and Firefox To Fingerprint TLS Traffic
by Peter Reutemann 06 Oct '19

06 Oct '19

'A Russian cyber-espionage hacker group has been spotted using a novel technique that involves patching locally installed browsers like Chrome and Firefox in order to modify the browsers' internal components. The end goal of these modifications is to alter the way the two browsers set up HTTPS connections, and add a per-victim fingerprint for the TLS-encrypted web traffic that originates from the infected computers... According to a Kaspersky report published this week, hackers are infecting victims with a remote access trojan named Reductor, through which they are modifying the two browsers. This process involves two steps. They first install their own digital certificates to each infected host. This would allow hackers to intercept any TLS traffic originating from the host. Second, they modify the Chrome and Firefox installation to patch their pseudo-random number generation (PRNG) functions. These functions are used when generating random numbers needed for the process of negotiating and establishing new TLS handshakes for HTTPS connections. Turla hackers are using these tainted PRNG functions to add a small fingerprint at the start of every new TLS connection. The attack is being attributed to Turla, "a well-known hacker group believed to operate under the protection of the Russian government," ZDNet reports. And though the remote-access trojan already grants full control over a victim's device, one theory is the modified browsers offer "a secondary surveillance mechanism" if that trojan was discovered and removed. Researchers believe the malware is installed during file transfers over HTTP connections, suggesting an ISP had been compromised, according to the article. "A January 2018 report from fellow cyber-security firm ESET revealed that Turla had compromised at least four ISPs before, in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet space, also with the purpose of tainting downloads and adding malware to legitimate fil' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/19/10/06/2242221 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 Might Bring Its Edge Browser To Linux
by Peter Reutemann 06 Oct '19

06 Oct '19

'Microsoft appears to be porting its Edge browser to Linux, reports ZDNet: "We on the MS Edge Dev team are fleshing out requirements to bring Edge to Linux, and we need your help with some assumptions," wrote Sean Larkin, a member of Microsoft's Edge team.... Chrome, of course, is already available for Linux, so Microsoft should be able to deliver Chromium-based Edge to Linux distributions with minimal fuss.... [I]n June Microsoft Edge developers said there are "no technical blockers to keep us from creating Linux binaries" and that it is "definitely something we'd like to do down the road". Despite Chrome's availability on Linux, the Edge team noted there is still work to be done on the installer, updaters, user sync, and bug fixes, before it could be something to commit to properly. Slashdot reader think_nix shared a link to the related survey that the Edge team has announced on Twitter. "If you're a dev who depends on Linux for dev, testing, personal browsing, please take a second to fill out this survey."' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/19/10/05/1723204 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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To Fight Spectre-Like Attacks, Intel Suggests a New Kind of Memory
by Peter Reutemann 06 Oct '19

06 Oct '19

'Intel researchers published a paper last week suggesting a new kind of CPU memory to block side-channel attacks like Meltdown and Spectre, according to ZDNet: SAPM -- or Speculative-Access Protected Memory -- is the work of Intel STORM (STrategic Offensive Research & Mitigations), a team of elite security researchers that Intel assembled since 2017 to work on creating mitigations for all the speculative-execution attacks that have impacted the CPU maker's products. SAPM is only an idea for the moment, and there are no silicon prototypes. Intel STORM engineers only released "the theory and possible implementation options," to provide "a ground base for other researchers to improve upon and also for the industry to consider...." Intel STORM researchers say SAPM will implement protections at the hardware level and will work with both physical and virtual memory addresses. "SAPM can be applied to specific memory ranges, with the attribute that any memory access to such memory type will be instruction-level serialized, meaning that any speculative execution beyond the SAPM-accessing instruction will be stopped pending the successful retirement of this SAPM-accessing instruction," Intel STORM developers said in their short description of SAPM's basic principles... Intel STORM researchers say the second part (backend) of most speculative execution attacks performs the same actions. SAPM was designed to introduce hardware-based protections against the backend part of most attacks. It's because of this concept that Intel's research team believes that SAPM will also future-proof the next generations of Intel CPUs against other -- currently undiscovered -- speculative execution attacks. "Intel STORM researchers don't deny that there's a performance hit," the article adds. "However, this impact is low and could be mitigated further by dropping other existing protections."' -- source: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/19/10/05/0315201 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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