September 2024 - wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

Haiku (Originally 'OpenBeOS') Releases Long Awaited R1/Beta5
by Peter Reutemann 16 Sep '24

16 Sep '24

'Haiku (the MIT-licensed operating system, inspired by BeOS) has released its fifth beta for Haiku R1. Some new features include improved UI color management, improved dark mode coloring, Tracker improvements, TUN/TAP support for VPN connections, TCP throughput improvements, performance optimizations, UFS2 (BSD's filesystem) read-only support, new FAT filesystem driver, improved hardware support, improved POSIX compliance, improved performance, and more. Slashdot has been covering the fate of the BeOS since 2000 (as well as the short-lived derivative project ZETA — and Haiku). And now "With a history of over two decades and previously known as OpenBeOS, today's Haiku is pushing forward..." writes the site NotebookCheck: Haiku is a spiritual successor to BeOS, with a focus on a clean and user-friendly design paired with low system requirements. The minimum system requirements are still an Intel Pentium II/AMD Athlon CPU or better, at least 384 MB RAM, an 800x600 screen, and at least 3GB storage. It works on both 32-bit and 64-bit x86 PCs, and the 32-bit version can run many unmodified BeOS applications. It might be the best desktop open-source operating system not based on Linux or Unix... It works well in a virtual machine like VirtualBox or UTM. ' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/09/14/158240 Anybody ever tried running/using Haiku? Cheers, Peter

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'Samba' Networking Protocol Project Gets Big Funding from the German Sovereign Tech Fund
by Peter Reutemann 16 Sep '24

16 Sep '24

'Samba is "a free software re-implementation of the SMB networking protocol," according to Wikipedia. And now the Samba project "has secured significant funding (€688,800.00) from the German Sovereign Tech Fund to advance the project," writes Jeremy Allison — Sam (who is Slashdot reader #8,157 — and also a long standing member of Samba's core team): The investment was successfully applied for by [information security service provider] SerNet. Over the next 18 months, Samba developers from SerNet will tackle 17 key development subprojects aimed at enhancing Samba's security, scalability, and functionality. The Sovereign Tech Fund is a German federal government funding program that supports the development, improvement, and maintenance of open digital infrastructure. Their goal is to sustainably strengthen the open source ecosystem. The project's focus is on areas like SMB3 Transparent Failover, SMB3 UNIX extensions, SMB-Direct, Performance and modern security protocols such as SMB over QUIC. These improvements are designed to ensure that Samba remains a robust and secure solution for organizations that rely on a sovereign IT infrastructure. Development work began as early as September the 1st and is expected to be completed by the end of February 2026 for all sub-projects. All development will be done in the open following the existing Samba development process. First gitlab CI pipelines have already been running and gitlab MRs will appear soon! Back in 2000, Jeremy Allison answered questions from Slashdot readers about Samba. Allison is now a board member at both the GNOME Foundation and the Software Freedom Conservancy, a distinguished engineer at Rocky Linux creator CIQ, and a long-time free software advocate.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/09/14/1726252 Cheers, Peter

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copying random sample of files
by Peter Reutemann 12 Sep '24

12 Sep '24

Hi everyone I was just wondering how I can copy a random subset of files from one folder to another. And, of course, there bash utilities for that... ;-) I came across two solutions for copying 20 files from the current directory into DEST: - shuf cp `ls | shuf -n 20` DEST - sort (using random sort) ls | sort -R | tail -20 | while read file do cp $file DEST done source: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/414164/ Man pages: - shuf: https://www.man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/shuf.1.html - sort: https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/sort.1.html Cheers, Peter

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Rogue WHOIS server gives researcher superpowers no one should ever have
by Peter Reutemann 12 Sep '24

12 Sep '24

'It’s not every day that a security researcher acquires the ability to generate counterfeit HTTPS certificates, track email activity, and the position to execute code of his choice on thousands of servers—all in a single blow that cost only $20 and a few minutes to land. But that’s exactly what happened recently to Benjamin Harris. Harris, the CEO and founder of security firm watchTowr, did all of this by registering the domain dotmobiregistry.net. The domain was once the official home of the authoritative WHOIS server for .mobi, a top-level domain used to indicate that a website is optimized for mobile devices. At some point—it’s not clear precisely when—this WHOIS server, which acts as the official directory for every domain ending in .mobi, was relocated, from whois.dotmobiregistry.net to whois.nic.mobi. While retreating to his Las Vegas hotel room during last month’s Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas, Harris noticed that the previous dotmobiregistry.net owners had allowed the domain to expire. He then scooped it up and set up his own .mobi WHOIS server there.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/security/2024/09/rogue-whois-server-gives-researche… Cheers, Peter

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Floorp browser
by Peter Reutemann 12 Sep '24

12 Sep '24

Hi everyone Just came across the Floorp browser, which is based on Firefox. Refreshing news, as most new browsers nowadays seem to be Chromium-based... 'Floorp, an amazing free and open-source browser backed by a Japanese company, has gained quite a bit of attention recently for offering data and privacy protection, including high customization options such as Vivaldi in relation to Chrome. The browser's performance was quite fascinating, as it was able to achieve 60% more speed compared to Firefox when tested with Speedometer and JetStream 2 benchmarking tools. If your current browser is Firefox and you love to tweak your browser, then I highly recommend you give it a try. The following is a list of data privacy and customization options offered by Floorp: - An option to enable strong fingerprints, disabling WebGL, and HTTPs for every site is available. - Open the link, image, and media in a new tab and immediately move to it. - Provide a vertical tab on the right side of the browser to quickly open certain sites or browser settings. - Built-in option to change between different user agents. - Offers a preset of 80 keyboard shortcuts for different browser actions. - It comes with Floorp Notes Sync, similar to Vivialdi, to keep your notes. - Integrated with Firefox sync to synchronize your browser bookmarks, cookies, logins, open tabs, etc.' -- source: https://ubuntushell.com/install-floorp/ -- project: https://floorp.app/ Cheers, Peter

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SynthSaga -- A Good Use For AI
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 09 Sep '24

09 Sep '24

Have a look at some of the stuff on this channel <https://www.youtube.com/@SynthSaga/videos> -- science-fiction-themed, steampunk, dieselpunk, alternative realities, whatever you want to call it. Mostly monochrome, but I still found several of them mind-blowing. Not sure if the audio was part of the same AI process, or if the artist (yes, I’d call them an artist) created that separately. Yeah, there are lots of glitches and bugs and hilariously impossible occlusions and the like. But that just adds to the hallucinatory feel. And each one is short, which leaves you wanting more. Wouldn’t you like to spend some time in a world like one of those? Just try to ignore the glitches in the matrix and go with the flow. ;)

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3D Volumetric Voxel Display
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 09 Sep '24

09 Sep '24

A guy from Weta Workshop has created a “volumetric voxel” display for showing 3D images, by spinning a regular 2D panel at a dizzyingly high speed (more than 300rpm). The images are fairly low-res: think 1980s pixelated graphics extended to the third dimension. <https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/6/24238004/doom-volumetric-voxel-display-an…> I hope it’s covered in some shield, not just to keep errant fingers (and other body parts away), but in case something ... um ... comes apart unexpectedly ...

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Germany’s Sovereign Tech Fund Injects €686,400 into FreeBSD
by Peter Reutemann 04 Sep '24

04 Sep '24

'Sovereign Tech Fund, a funding pot supported financially by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action and hosted by the German Federal Agency for Disruptive Innovation, has once again been one of Open Source’s great friends and supporters. After providing €1 million in financial support to GNOME at the end of last year and investing €203K in GStreamer and €157K in FFmpeg earlier this year, the company is now making another impressive donation to the open-source ecosystem. The FreeBSD Foundation has announced a €686,400 investment from STF to enhance the FreeBSD operating system’s infrastructure and security.' -- source: https://linuxiac.com/sovereign-tech-fund-injects-686400-into-freebsd/ Cheers, Peter

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Elasticsearch Will Be Open Source Again as CTO Declares Changed Landscape
by Peter Reutemann 04 Sep '24

04 Sep '24

'Elastic, creator of popular search engine Elasticsearch and visualization tool Kibana, plans to introduce the AGPL open-source license alongside its existing licenses. The move comes three years after Elastic ditched the Apache 2.0 license, sparking controversy in the tech community. Founder Shay Banon says the change aims to clarify Elastic's market position following AWS's creation of OpenSearch, a fork of Elasticsearch. Despite initial friction, Banon claims Elastic's relationship with AWS has improved, citing growth in Elastic Cloud revenue and customer base.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/09/03/0511245 Cheers, Peter

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YubiKeys Are Vulnerable To Cloning Attacks Thanks To Newly Discovered Side Channel
by Peter Reutemann 04 Sep '24

04 Sep '24

'The YubiKey 5, the most widely used hardware token for two-factor authentication based on the FIDO standard, contains a cryptographic flaw that makes the finger-size device vulnerable to cloning when an attacker gains brief physical access to it, researchers said Tuesday. ArsTechnica: The cryptographic flaw, known as a side channel, resides in a small microcontroller that's used in a vast number of other authentication devices, including smartcards used in banking, electronic passports, and the accessing of secure areas. While the researchers have confirmed all YubiKey 5 series models can be cloned, they haven't tested other devices using the microcontroller, which is SLE78 made by Infineon and successor microcontrollers known as the Infineon Optiga Trust M and the Infineon Optiga TPM. The researchers suspect that any device using any of these three microcontrollers and the Infineon cryptographic library contain the same vulnerability. YubiKey-maker Yubico issued an advisory in coordination with a detailed disclosure report from NinjaLab, the security firm that reverse-engineered the YubiKey 5 series and devised the cloning attack. All YubiKeys running firmware prior to version 5.7 -- which was released in May and replaces the Infineon cryptolibrary with a custom one -- are vulnerable. Updating key firmware on the YubiKey isn't possible. That leaves all affected YubiKeys permanently vulnerable.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/24/09/03/1810216 Cheers, Peter

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