June 2020 - wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

Firefox 77 Arrives With Faster JavaScript Debugging and Optional Permissions
by Peter Reutemann 03 Jun '20

03 Jun '20

'Mozilla today launched Firefox 77 for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Firefox 77 includes faster JavaScript debugging, optional permissions for extensions, and Pocket recommendations in the U.K. You can download Firefox 77 for desktop now from Firefox.com, and all existing users should be able to upgrade to it automatically. According to Mozilla, Firefox has about 250 million active users, making it a major platform for web developers to consider. [...] Other than Pocket recommendations arriving in the U.K. (they've been in Canada, Germany, and the U.S. since April 2018), this is primarily a developer release. Firefox's Debugger is now better at handling large web apps with all their bundling, live reloading, and dependencies. Mozilla is promising performance improvements that speed up pausing and stepping, as well as cutting down on memory usage over time. Source maps should also see performance boosts -- some inline source maps load 10 times faster -- and improved reliability for many configurations. The debugger will now also respect the currently selected stack when stepping, which is useful when you've stepped into a function call or paused in a library method further down in the stack.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/06/02/1530214 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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Wallpaper crash explained: Here’s how a simple image can soft-brick phones
by Peter Reutemann 02 Jun '20

02 Jun '20

'How can a simple image crash an Android phone to the point that it becomes unusable? It’s a question that came out frequently over the past 24 hours, as news of a “cursed wallpaper” spread around the web. Here’s a recap: Setting a particular image as wallpaper can send some phones into a loop of crashes that makes them unusable. There are a few solutions, depending on how hard the phone is hit. Some users were able to change the wallpaper in the short interval between crashes. Others had success deleting the wallpaper using the recovery tool TWRP. But in most cases, the only solution was to reset the phone to factory settings, losing any data that’s not backed up. The issue was brought to light by Ice Universe, the Chinese Twitter users known for leaks. Based on user reports, many models from Samsung and Google are affected, while we’ve also seen some reports from users of OnePlus, Nokia, and Xiaomi devices (it’s not clear if these latter devices ran stock software or custom ROMs). From our own testing and looking at user reports, Huawei devices seem to be less exposed to the wallpaper crash issue.' -- source: https://www.androidauthority.com/android-wallpaper-crash-1124577/ 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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Programmers Use 80 Characters Per Line!?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 02 Jun '20

02 Jun '20

Are there still people writing their code to the constraints of 80-column CRT terminals which vanished into museums decades ago? Seems there are enough such around to rile Linus Torvalds <https://www.theregister.com/2020/06/01/linux_5_7/>. Even back in the days of those terminals, the printers you used for hard-copy listings could almost always do 132-column lines. And some of the terminals could be put into a mode with such a line length, by using a much narrower font (I remember it hurt my eyes to do much work in this mode). Nowadays I typically have my text-editor windows set to a width of 100 columns. And there is still enough room on my screen for two such views side-by-side.

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Lawsuit Over Online Book Lending Could Bankrupt Internet Archive
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 02 Jun '20

02 Jun '20

A group of book publishers is suing the Internet Archive over its recent loosening of restrictions on lending out copyrighted books <https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/06/publishers-sue-internet-archive…>. Choice description of the founder of the Internet Archive: "Brewster Kahle is what the Russians might call a holy fool—someone who acts without real regard for himself or the worldly things in the service of a higher calling," [copyright scholar James] Grimmelmann said.

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Cisco Discloses Security Breach That Impacted VIRL-PE Infrastructure
by Peter Reutemann 01 Jun '20

01 Jun '20

'Thursday Cisco disclosed a security breach that impacted a small part of its backend infrastructure and two of its commercial products also bundling the SaltStack software package as part of their firmware. ZDNet reports: Cisco said that hackers used a vulnerability in the SaltStack software package, which Cisco bundles with some products, to gain access to six servers... The six servers provide the backend infrastructure for VIRL-PE (Internet Routing Lab Personal Edition), a Cisco service that lets users model and create virtual network architectures to test network setups before deploying equipment in real situations. "Cisco identified that the Cisco maintained salt-master servers that are servicing Cisco VIRL-PE releases 1.2 and 1.3 were compromised," the company said Thursday. Cisco said it patched and remediated all hacked VIRL-PE servers on May 7, when it deployed updates for the SaltStack software. However, the issue isn't localized to Cisco's backend infrastructure alone. Cisco says that two of its commercial products also bundle the SaltStack software package as part of their firmware. These are the aforementioned Cisco VIRL-PE, and Cisco Modeling Labs Corporate Edition (CML), another network modeling tool. Both VIRL-PE and CML can be used in Cisco-hosted and on-premise scenarios. In case companies use the two products on location, Cisco says CML and VIRL-PE need to be patched.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/05/30/055201 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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