May 2021 - wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

List Of IPTV Resources
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 22 Sep '24

22 Sep '24

This user <https://github.com/iptv-org> just popped up in my GitHub feed. One repo <https://github.com/iptv-org/iptv> claims to be a list of links to over 8000 streaming TV channels from nations all over the world, while the other is a list of tools*, providers and other resources. Do be aware it’s a bit of a mixed bag: yes, there are legitimate channels (no encryption so far that I have noticed), but also some dubious-looking links. *Oddly, FFmpeg and youtube-dl aren’t in the list.

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Outlawing Dark Patterns
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 05 Nov '22

05 Nov '22

“Dark patterns” is a term coined to describe user interfaces designed to manipulate people into giving up time, money or personal data that they didn’t intend to. A common example is the obstacle course you often have to go through to cancel a subscription to something online. Another example is the use of countdown timers to rush buyers into hasty decisions. They may not be out-and-out deceptive, but they do come close. Now, the US states of California and Washington are looking to pass laws to restrict this practice. <https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/01/lawmakers-take-aim-at-insidious…>

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Apple’s Windows 10
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 19 Jul '22

19 Jul '22

Fred Brooks predicted long ago that complex pieces of software would eventually reach the point of irreducible entropy, where any attempt to fix a bug would simply introduce a new one. Microsoft’s Windows 10 seems to be about there, and it’s now clear that Apple’s macOS 10.15 “Catalina” has also joined that elite group <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/05/27/apple_catalina_update/>: The first spin of Catalina, officially released in October 2019, was a mess. ... The biggest issue was that all kinds of apps simply stopped working. ... Peripherals like mice, keyboards and printers stopped working. Email went missing; iCloud backups failed; users were constantly harassed by login requests; updates didn’t update ... ... So came for the first update to its new system one week after the main launch which fixed some, but not all, of the issues. ... Version two came in December 2019 and fixed some of those issues, but not all. ... More bug fixes came with version three in January 2020, but the OS seemed to have finally stabilized; something that was then spectacularly undone with version .4. ... Then we had the “supplemental update” to version 10.15.4, which fixed some, but not all, of the problems – most significantly the problem with Finder and transferring large files. And, amazingly, appeared to undo the good work that had been done with website security and broke SSH for some users. But now, with version point-five this week, that problem appears to have been sorted and, of course, your battery might last longer too.

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Linux On Mars: NASA’s Ingenuity Helicopter Flies
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 10 May '22

10 May '22

The first powered aircraft on Mars <https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/19/perseverance_computing_feature/> has proved its concept, taken flight for a few seconds, and made a controlled landing again. The control system is running Linux on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 chip, not because NASA considered it the best tool for the job, but because it was the easiest solution available. The hardware “is tuned for use on Earth, not Mars”, so it is only planned to make brief flights of no more than 90 seconds at a time, always landing back at the same spot, and it is not expected to endure beyond the initial 30 days of the Perseverance mission.

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More On The NZ Reserve Bank Breach
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 15 Sep '21

15 Sep '21

Seems hackers broke into a secure file-sharing service called Accellion, based in California. The RBNZ was using that to exchange documents with the likes of banks and insurance companies. <https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/123911764/reserve-bank-reveals-more-detail…>

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Microsoft To Add Support for Linux GUI Apps on Windows 10 Later This Year
by Peter Reutemann 03 Jul '21

03 Jul '21

'Microsoft is making the promised support for Linux graphical user interface (GUI) apps on Windows 10 available to customers as of the next Windows 10 release, officials said on May 25. Microsoft officials made the announcement on Day 1 of its virtual Build 2021 developers conference. From a report: During his Day 1 keynote, CEO Satya Nadella basically acknowledged there will be another event "soon" about the next Windows. He said: ""And soon we will share one of the most significant updates of Windows of the past decade." He said he has been self-hosting it over the past several months and called it "the next generation of Windows." Microsoft released a preview of Linux GUI apps on the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) in April, 2021. This capability is meant to allow developers to run their preferred Linux tools, utilities and apps directly on Windows 10. With GUI app support, users can now run GUI apps for testing, development and daily use without having to set up a virtual machine.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/21/05/25/1639238 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 577-5304 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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How Facebook Architects Around Silent Data Corruption
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 04 Jun '21

04 Jun '21

Seems like Facebook’s computation facilities have become so massive that it is starting to see intermittent errors in places you wouldn’t expect <https://www.nextplatform.com/2021/03/01/facebook-architects-around-silent-d…>: Engineers found that many of the cascading errors are the result of CPUs in production but not always due to the “soft errors” of radiation or synthetic fault injection. Rather, they find these can happen randomly on CPUs in repeatable ways. Although ECC is useful, this is focused on problems in SRAM but other elements are susceptible. The Facebook engineering team that reported on these problems finds that CPU silent data corruptions are actually orders of magnitude higher than soft-errors due to a lack of error correction in other blocks. The article mentions examples like a computation of 2×3 sometimes returning an answer other than 6, or a file size intermittently (and incorrectly) being computed as zero, leading to the file data not being copied. Such occurrences may be extremely rare, but when you are doing things on the scale that Facebook does, they start to become all too common. Facebook has published a paper (linked in the report) on their research into the problem. They have worked out some techniques to try to mitigate these issues, but of course they come at a cost.

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China Cracking Down On Cryptomining
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 02 Jun '21

02 Jun '21

This article <https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/5/24/china-crackdown-forces-crypto-m…> reports on how many large cryptomining operators are moving out of China in the wake of the Government’s actions against them. But the main reason I’m posting this link is because of that picture. That’s what it looks like inside a cryptomining farm. Look at those power cables, like ships’ hawsers. It’s even more impressive at full resolution.

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Quic Gives the Internet's Data Transmission Foundation a Needed Speedup
by Peter Reutemann 01 Jun '21

01 Jun '21

'One of the internet's foundations just got an upgrade. From a report: Quic, a protocol for transmitting data between computers, improves speed and security on the internet and can replace Transmission Control Protocol, or TCP, a standard that dates back to Ye Olde Internet of 1974. Last week, the Internet Engineering Task Force, which sets many standards for the global network, published Quic as a standard. Web browsers and online services have been testing the technology for years, but the IETF's imprimatur is a sign the standard is mature enough to embrace fully. It's extremely hard to improve the internet at the fundamental level of data transmission. Countless devices, programs and services are built to use the earlier infrastructure, which has lasted decades. Quic has been in public development for nearly eight years since Google first announced Quic in 2013 as an experimental addition to its Chrome browser. But upgrades to the internet's foundations are crucial to keep the world-spanning communication and commerce backbone humming. That's why engineers spend so much effort on titanic transitions like Quic, HTTPS for secure website communications, post-quantum cryptography to protect data from future quantum computers, and IPv6 for accommodating vastly more devices on the internet.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/21/05/31/168221 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 577-5304 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Amazon Devices Will Soon Automatically Share Your Internet With Neighbors
by Peter Reutemann 01 Jun '21

01 Jun '21

'If you use Alexa, Echo, or any other Amazon device, you have just over a week to opt out of an experiment that leaves your personal privacy and security hanging in the balance. From a report: On June 8, the merchant, Web host, and entertainment behemoth will automatically enroll the devices in Amazon Sidewalk. The new wireless mesh service will share a small slice of your Internet bandwidth with nearby neighbors who don't have connectivity and help you to their bandwidth when you don't have a connection. By default, Amazon devices including Alexa, Echo, Ring, security cams, outdoor lights, motion sensors, and Tile trackers will enroll in the system. And since only a tiny fraction of people take the time to change default settings, that means millions of people will be co-opted into the program whether they know anything about it or not. The Amazon webpage linked above says Sidewalk "is currently only available in the US." [...] Amazon has published a white paper detailing the technical underpinnings and service terms that it says will protect the privacy and security of this bold undertaking. To be fair, the paper is fairly comprehensive, and so far no one has pointed out specific flaws that undermine the encryption or other safeguards being put in place. But there are enough theoretical risks to give users pause.' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/21/05/31/2024259 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 577-5304 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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