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

Hard drives
by john 17 Oct '19

17 Oct '19

I sent this yesterday with four screenshots not aware that I may incur the wrath of the moderator. Here is a copy of the e-mail minus the pretty pictures. My neighbor just gave me a couple of failed Sea-gate hard drives to test I put them (one at a time) into my Linux mint machine. They showed up in my computer but would not mount.(see attachments) I ran the "Disks" utility which reported exactly the same problem (one incident of over temperature) for both disks However it stated that the disks were OK. One disk has 500GB of movies and TV series The other 375GB Operas and areas. The disks were used by a Mother and Son on two laptops and were cross pollinated between the two. I doubt that forcing a mount would reap a reward in this case. If any one can help with this it would be neat. Cheers John..

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Interview With Fedora Project Leader Matthew Miller On 15 Years of Fedora
by Peter Reutemann 17 Oct '19

17 Oct '19

'Fedora -- as a Linux distribution -- will celebrate the 15th anniversary of its first release in November, though its technical lineage is much older, as Fedora Core 1 was created following the discontinuation of Red Hat Linux 9 in favor of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Five years after the start of Fedora.next, the distribution is on the right track -- stability has improved, and work on minimizing hard dependencies in packages and containers, including more audio/video codecs by default, flicker-free boot, and lowering power consumption for notebooks, among other changes, have greatly improved the Fedora experience, while improvements in upstream projects such as GNOME and KDE have likewise improved the desktop experience. In a wide-ranging interview with TechRepublic, Fedora project leader Matthew Miller discussed lessons learned from the past, popular adoption and competing standards for software containers, potential changes coming to Fedora, as well as hot-button topics, including systemd.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/19/10/16/1712207 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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meetup.com: members will pay soon
by Peter Reutemann 16 Oct '19

16 Oct '19

Hi everyone Came across this news item from meetup.com: https://www.meetup.com/lp/paymentchanges Members will soon get charged USD 2 per month for using meetup.com. So far, it was only the organizers that had to cough up money. The idea is to lower costs for organizers and ensure that people RSVPing actually show up. I'll put this as topic for the upcoming AGM. In the meantime, we should start looking for alternatives. E.g.: https://alternativeto.net/software/meetup/ Personally, I like GetTogether (https://gettogether.community/) 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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UK’s AMD-CPU-Based Archer2 Supercomputer At Edinburgh Uni
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 15 Oct '19

15 Oct '19

What’s notable about this super <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/10/15/uk_archer2_supercomputer/> is that it uses AMD CPUs instead of Intel, and it is (mostly) CPU-only, with a small number of GPUs available on the side.

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Google's Auto-Delete Tools Are Practically Worthless For Privacy
by Peter Reutemann 15 Oct '19

15 Oct '19

'By default, Google collects a vast amount of data on users' behavior, including a lifelong record of web searches, locations, and YouTube views. But amid a privacy backlash and ongoing regulatory threats, the company has started to hype its recently released privacy tools, like the ability to automatically delete some of the data it collects about you -- data that helps power its $116 billion ad business. [...] In reality, these auto-delete tools accomplish little for users, even as they generate positive PR for Google. Experts say that by the time three months rolls around, Google has already extracted nearly all the potential value from users' data, and from an advertising standpoint, data becomes practically worthless when it's more than a few months old. "Anything up to one month is extremely valuable," says David Dweck, the head of paid search at digital ad firm WPromote. "Anything beyond one month, we probably weren't going to target you anyway." Dweck says that in the digital ad industry, recent activity is essential. If you start searching on Google for real estate or looking up housing values, for instance, Google might lump you into a "prospective home buyers" category for advertisers. That information becomes instantly valuable to realtors, appraisers, and lenders for ad targeting, and it could remain valuable for a while as other companies, such as painters or appliance brands, try to follow up on your home buying. Still, it's unusual for advertisers to target users based on their activity from months earlier, Dweck says.' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/19/10/15/1933230 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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Flaw In Sudo Enables Non-Privileged Users To Run Commands As Root
by Peter Reutemann 15 Oct '19

15 Oct '19

'A vulnerability has been discovered in Sudo -- one of the most important, powerful, and commonly used utilities that comes as a core command installed on almost every UNIX and Linux-based operating system. The vulnerability in question is a sudo security policy bypass issue that could allow a malicious user or a program to execute arbitrary commands as root on a targeted Linux system even when the "sudoers configuration" explicitly disallows the root access. Sudo, stands for "superuser do," is a system command that allows a user to run applications or commands with the privileges of a different user without switching environments -- most often, for running commands as the root user. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2019-14287 and discovered by Joe Vennix of Apple Information Security, is more concerning because the sudo utility has been designed to let users use their own login password to execute commands as a different user without requiring their password. What's more interesting is that this flaw can be exploited by an attacker to run commands as root just by specifying the user ID "-1" or "4294967295." That's because the function which converts user id into its username incorrectly treats -1, or its unsigned equivalent 4294967295, as 0, which is always the user ID of root user. The vulnerability affects all Sudo versions prior to the latest released version 1.8.28, which has been released today.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/19/10/14/2231235 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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Apple's Safari Browser Is Sending Some Users' IP Addresses To China's Tencent
by Peter Reutemann 14 Oct '19

14 Oct '19

'"Apple, which often positions itself as a champion of privacy and human rights, is sending some IP addresses from users of its Safari browser on iOS to Chinese conglomerate Tencent -- a company with close ties to the Chinese Communist Party," reports the Reclaim the Net blog: Apple admits that it sends some user IP addresses to Tencent in the "About Safari & Privacy" section of its Safari settings.... The "Fraudulent Website Warning" setting is toggled on by default which means that unless iPhone or iPad users dive two levels deep into their settings and toggle it off, their IP addresses may be logged by Tencent or Google when they use the Safari browser. However, doing this makes browsing sessions less secure and leaves users vulnerable to accessing fraudulent websites... Even if people install a third-party browser on their iOS device, viewing web pages inside apps still opens them in an integrated form of Safari called Safari View Controller instead of the third-party browser. Tapping links inside apps also opens them in Safari rather than a third-party browser. These behaviors that force people back into Safari make it difficult for people to avoid the Safari browser completely when using an iPhone or iPad. Engadget adds that it's "not clear" whether or not Tencent is actually collecting IP addresses from users outside of China. ("You'll see mention of the collection in the U.S. disclaimer, but that doesn't mean it's scooping up info from American web surfers.") But Reclaim the Net points out that the possibility is troubling, in part because Safari is the #1 most popular mobile internet browser in America, with a market share of over 50%.' -- source: https://apple.slashdot.org/story/19/10/14/033225 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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AGM next month
by Peter Reutemann 14 Oct '19

14 Oct '19

Hi everyone We have our AGM coming up next month, November 25th: Agenda (preliminary) • President's Report • Treasurer's Report • Election of 2020 Committee • General business • Consumption of pizza Details: https://www.meetup.com/WaikatoLinuxUsersGroup/events/257884356/ 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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Bell Labs Plans Big 50th Anniversary Event For Unix
by Peter Reutemann 14 Oct '19

14 Oct '19

'Photographer Peter Adams launched a "Faces of Open Source" portrait project in 2014. This week he posted a special announcement on the web site of Bell Labs: Later this month, Bell Labs will celebrate the 50th anniversary of Unix with a special two day "Unix 50" event at their historic Murray Hill headquarters. This event should be one for the history books with many notable Unix and computer pioneers in attendance...! As I was making those photographs (which will be on display at the event), I gained much insight into Bell Labs and the development of Unix. However, it was some of the more personal stories and anecdotes that brought Bell Labs to life and gave me a feel for the people behind the code. One such time was when Ken Thompson (who is an accomplished pilot) told me how he traveled to Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union in order to fly in a MiG-29 fighter jet... Brian Kernighan told me about how a certain portrait of Peter Weinberger found its way into some very interesting places. These included the concrete foundation of a building on Bell Labs campus, the cover images printed onto Unix CD-ROMs, and most notably, painted on the top of a nearby water tower. Which brings us to another important piece of Unix mythology that I learned about: the fictitious Bell Labs employee G.R. Emlin (a.k.a. "the gremlin").... A lot of this folklore (including the gremlin) is going to be on display at the Unix 50 event. The archivists at Bell Labs have outdone themselves by pulling together a massive collection of artifacts taken from the labs where Unix was developed for over 30 years. I was able to photograph a few of these artifacts last year, but so much more will be exhibited at this event -- including several items from the personal archives of some attendees. As if that wasn't enough, the event will also showcase a number of vintage computers and a look into Bell Labs future with a tour of their Future X Labs. The article includes some more quick stories about the Unix pioneers at Bell Labs (including "the gremlin") and argues that "the decision to freely distribute Unix's source code (to anyone who asked for it) inadvertently set the stage for the free and open source software movements that dominate the technology industry today... "In hindsight, maybe 1969 should be called the 'summer of code.'"' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/19/10/12/1625237 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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Planting tiny spy chips in hardware can cost as little as $200
by Peter Reutemann 14 Oct '19

14 Oct '19

'More than a year has passed since Bloomberg Businessweek grabbed the lapels of the cybersecurity world with a bombshell claim: that Supermicro motherboards in servers used by major tech firms, including Apple and Amazon, had been stealthily implanted with a chip the size of a rice grain that allowed Chinese hackers to spy deep into those networks. Apple, Amazon, and Supermicro all vehemently denied the report. The National Security Agency dismissed it as a false alarm. The Defcon hacker conference awarded it two Pwnie Awards, for "most overhyped bug" and "most epic fail." And no follow-up reporting has yet affirmed its central premise. But even as the facts of that story remain unconfirmed, the security community has warned that the possibility of the supply chain attacks it describes is all too real. The NSA, after all, has been doing something like it for years, according to the leaks of whistle-blower Edward Snowden. Now researchers have gone further, showing just how easily and cheaply a tiny, tough-to-detect spy chip could be planted in a company's hardware supply chain. And one of them has demonstrated that it doesn't even require a state-sponsored spy agency to pull it off—just a motivated hardware hacker with the right access and as little as $200 worth of equipment.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/10/planting-tiny-spy-ch… 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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