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DDoSers are using a potent new method to deliver attacks of unthinkable size
by Peter Reutemann 02 Mar '22

02 Mar '22

'Last August, academic researchers discovered a potent new method for knocking sites offline: a fleet of misconfigured servers more than 100,000 strong that can amplify floods of junk data to once-unthinkable sizes. These attacks, in many cases, could result in an infinite routing loop that causes a self-perpetuating flood of traffic. Now, content-delivery network Akamai says attackers are exploiting the servers to target sites in the banking, travel, gaming, media, and web-hosting industries. These servers—known as middleboxes—are deployed by nation-states such as China to censor restricted content and by large organizations to block sites pushing porn, gambling, and pirated downloads. The servers fail to follow transmission control protocol specifications that require a three-way handshake—comprising an SYN packet sent by the client, a SYN+ACK response from the server, followed by a confirmation ACK packet from the client—before a connection is established. This handshake limits the TCP-based app from being abused as amplifiers because the ACK confirmation must come from the gaming company or other target rather than an attacker spoofing the target’s IP address. But given the need to handle asymmetric routing, in which the middlebox can monitor packets delivered from the client but not the final destination that’s being censored or blocked, many such servers drop the requirement by design.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/03/unending-data-floods… Considering that we suffered a widespread internet outage earlier today (and my internet is still flaky or slow), seems rather relevant: https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/technology/2021/09/internet-down-for-many-ar… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 (office) +64 (7) 577-5304 (home office) https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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meeting next Monday
by Peter Reutemann 28 Feb '22

28 Feb '22

Hi everyone We have a (virtual) meeting scheduled for next Monday: Peter Reutemann will demo openbalena (https://www.balena.io/open/) and how it can be used for managing an IoT fleet of devices. Ian Stewart will present his modem running the latest version of OpenWrt ( https://openwrt.org/ ). Using ssh into his modem and what the web-based user interface looks like, we will see some of the improvements that have gone into this latest release. Details: https://www.meetup.com/WaikatoLinuxUsersGroup/events/283776605/ Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 (office) +64 (7) 577-5304 (home office) https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Australia’s Standoff Against Google And Facebook Worked--Sort Of
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 28 Feb '22

28 Feb '22

Analysis of how Australia forced Google and Facebook to negotiate with news outlets over compensation for carrying their stories <https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/02/australias-standoff-against-goo…>. Other countries (most famously Spain) had previously tried something similar, only to have it backfire spectacularly. Australia has succeeded where others failed—up to a point. Seems the two online behemoths are paying off some bigger news outlets, but rebuffing attempts from others to come to a similar deal. While the country’s news media bargaining code is now law, it has not (yet) actually needed enforcement: all the deals so far have been voluntary. So, has it been beneficial for Australian media as a whole, or only for certain favoured players? But even critics of the code suggest it could be a useful starting point. Emily Bell, director of Columbia University’s Tow Center for Digital Journalism, says she is concerned by the code’s lack of transparency, but concedes that Facebook and Google have paid more to publishers in Australia than they do under their philanthropic donations elsewhere. “What we do know is that some legislation is better than none.”

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Samsung Shattered Encryption On 100 Million Phones
by Peter Reutemann 25 Feb '22

25 Feb '22

'Samsung shipped an estimated 100 million smartphones with botched encryption, including models ranging from the 2017 Galaxy S8 on up to last year's Galaxy S21. Threatpost reports: Researchers at Tel Aviv University found what they called "severe" cryptographic design flaws that could have let attackers siphon the devices' hardware-based cryptographic keys: keys that unlock the treasure trove of security-critical data that's found in smartphones. What's more, cyber attackers could even exploit Samsung's cryptographic missteps -- since addressed in multiple CVEs -- to downgrade a device's security protocols. That would set up a phone to be vulnerable to future attacks: a practice known as IV (initialization vector) reuse attacks. IV reuse attacks screw with the encryption randomization that ensures that even if multiple messages with identical plaintext are encrypted, the generated corresponding ciphertexts will each be distinct. The design flaws primarily affect devices that use ARM's TrustZone technology: the hardware support provided by ARM-based Android smartphones (which are the majority) for a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) to implement security-sensitive functions. TrustZone splits a phone into two portions, known as the Normal world (for running regular tasks, such as the Android OS) and the Secure world, which handles the security subsystem and where all sensitive resources reside. The Secure world is only accessible to trusted applications used for security-sensitive functions, including encryption. Matthew Green, associate professor of computer science at the Johns Hopkins Information Security Institute, explained on Twitter that Samsung incorporated "serious flaws" in the way its phones encrypt key material in TrustZone, calling it "embarrassingly bad." "They used a single key and allowed IV re-use," Green said. "So they could have derived a different key-wrapping key for each key they protect," he continued. "But instead Samsung basically doesn't. Then they allow the app-layer code to pick encryption IVs." The design decision allows for "trivial decryption," he said. Samsung responded to the academics' disclosure by issuing a patch for affected devices that addressed CVE-2021-25444: an IV reuse vulnerability in the Keymaster Trusted Application (TA) that runs in the TrustZone. Keymaster TA carries out cryptographic operations in the Secure world via hardware, including a cryptographic engine. The Keymaster TA uses blobs, which are keys "wrapped" (encrypted) via AES-GCM. The vulnerability allowed for decryption of custom key blobs. Then, in July 2021, the researchers revealed a downgrade attack -- one that lets attacker trigger IV reuse vulnerability with privileged process. Samsung issued another patch -- to address CVE-2021-25490 -- that remoged the legacy blob implementation from devices including Samsung's Galaxy S10, S20 and S21 phones. ' -- source: https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/22/02/24/222207 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 (office) +64 (7) 577-5304 (home office) https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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FreeDOS Puts Out New Release
by Peter Reutemann 25 Feb '22

25 Feb '22

'FreeDOS has put out release 1.3, the latest release in 6-years. Some of the improvements since the 1.2 release, include: new FreeCOM 0.85a, new Kernel 2043 and an 8086 version with FAT32 support, floppy edition now uses compression...let's party like it's 1994.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/22/02/24/1540240 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 (office) +64 (7) 577-5304 (home office) https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Russia’s most cutthroat hackers infect network devices with new botnet malware
by Peter Reutemann 24 Feb '22

24 Feb '22

'Hackers for one of Russia’s most elite and brazen spy agencies have infected home and small-office network devices around the world with a previously unseen malware that turns them into attack platforms that can steal confidential data and target other networks. Cyclops Blink, as the advanced malware has been dubbed, has infected about 1 percent of network firewall devices made by network device manufacturer Watchguard, the company said on Wednesday. The malware is able to abuse a legitimate firmware update mechanism found in infected devices in a way that gives it persistence, meaning it survives reboots. [...] So far, the advisory stated, Sandworm has “primarily” used the malware to infect network devices from WatchGuard, but it’s likely the hackers are able to compile it to run on other platforms as well. The malware gains persistence on WatchGuard devices by abusing the legitimate process they use to receive firmware updates.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/02/russias-most-cut-thr… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 (office) +64 (7) 577-5304 (home office) https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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ReiserFS Proposed To Be Removed From Linux In 2022
by Peter Reutemann 24 Feb '22

24 Feb '22

'Linux kernel developers have discussed on the kernel developers forum to remove ReiserFS from the kernel starting in 2022. ReiserFS was added as Linux's first journaling file system 21 years ago with SUSE using it as the default filesystem until 2006. However, since Hans Reiser was sent to jail 15 years ago for murder, there has not been much development or interest in it. Noting that there have been no user-spotted fixes since 2019, longtime kernel developer Matthew Wilcox also cited that ReiserFS was only block for some kernel changes he wished to implement. These days there are better alternatives like EXT4, Btrfs, XFS, and OpenZFS.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/22/02/23/0537213 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 (office) +64 (7) 577-5304 (home office) https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Fwd: [Flounder] new list and updated web site, next meeting 5th March
by Peter Reutemann 22 Feb '22

22 Feb '22

This new list FLOSS Down Under - Internet-Meeting group for Free Software people may be of interest to some of the people on this list as well. Cheers, Peter ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Russell Coker via Flounder <flounder(a)lists.linux.org.au> Date: Tue, Feb 22, 2022 at 5:08 PM Subject: [Flounder] new list and updated web site, next meeting 5th March To: <flounder(a)lists.linux.org.au> https://flounder.linux.org.au/ Above is the new URL for the web site. It has a link for an iCal file with future meetings. I will add meetings without agenda many months ahead of time and then replace them with proper events when we have an agenda. This is the new list, I subscribed some people who are interested (hope everyone wanted that). Please forward to your friends! -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/ _______________________________________________ Flounder mailing list Flounder(a)lists.linux.org.au http://lists.linux.org.au/mailman/listinfo/flounder -- My Open Source Blog - http://open.fracpete.org

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Tip Of The Week: Controlling The Battery Charge Threshold
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 21 Feb '22

21 Feb '22

Came across this rather interesting reader comment <https://forums.theregister.com/forum/all/2022/02/18/something_for_the_weeke…> about (supposedly) prolonging the life of your laptop battery by reducing the limit to which it is charged. This is configured by creating a systemd service file (called, for example, /etc/systemd/system/battery-charge-threshold.service) that automatically sets the threshold at boot time. Its contents are [Unit] Description=Set the battery charge threshold After=multi-user.target StartLimitBurst=0 [Service] Type=oneshot Restart=on-failure ExecStart=/bin/bash -c 'echo 50 > /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/charge_control_end_threshold' [Install] WantedBy=multi-user.target You then use the usual “systemctl start” command to invoke this immediately, plus “systemctl enable” to ensure it runs at every subsequent boot. Regardless of whether it actually prolongs the life of your battery (try at your own risk!), it shows how easy it is to customize aspects of your system behaviour with systemd. As of this writing, that comment has garnered 7 upvotes and no downvotes, on a site where the readers are notorious for being a nest of systemd-haters.

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Is Firefox OK?
by Peter Reutemann 21 Feb '22

21 Feb '22

'At the end of 2008, Firefox was flying high. Twenty percent of the 1.5 billion people online were using Mozilla’s browser to navigate the web. In Indonesia, Macedonia, and Slovenia, more than half of everyone going online was using Firefox. “Our market share in the regions above has been growing like crazy,” Ken Kovash, Mozilla’s president at the time, wrote in a blog post. Almost 15 years later, things aren’t so rosy. Across all devices, the browser has slid to less than 4 percent of the market—on mobile it’s a measly half a percent. “Looking back five years and looking at our market share and our own numbers that we publish, there's no denying the decline,” says Selena Deckelmann, senior vice president of Firefox. Mozilla’s own statistics show a drop of around 30 million monthly active users from the start of 2019 to the start of 2022. “In the last couple years, what we've seen is actually a pretty substantial flattening,” Deckelmann adds.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/02/is-firefox-ok/ Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 (office) +64 (7) 577-5304 (home office) https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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