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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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Microsoft Says Its Recall Uninstall Option in Windows 11 is Just a Bug
by Peter Reutemann 03 Sep '24

03 Sep '24

'While the latest update to Windows 11 makes it look like the upcoming Recall feature can be easily removed by users, Microsoft tells us it's just a bug and a fix is coming. Deskmodder spotted the change last week in the latest 24H2 version of Windows 11, with KB5041865 seemingly delivering the ability to uninstall Recall from the Windows Features section. "We are aware of an issue where Recall is incorrectly listed as an option under the 'Turn Windows features on or off' dialog in Control Panel," says Windows senior product manager Brandon LeBlanc in a statement to The Verge. "This will be fixed in an upcoming update."' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/24/09/02/2241242 The only way to push a feature that users don't want: make it mandatory! I think, the technical term for this approach is "enshittification": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification Cheers, Peter

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Rust for Linux Maintainer Steps Down in Frustration With 'Nontechnical Nonsense'
by Peter Reutemann 03 Sep '24

03 Sep '24

'Efforts to add Rust code to the Linux kernel has suffered a setback as one of the maintainers of the Rust for Linux project has stepped down -- citing frustration with "nontechnical nonsense." The Register: Wedson Almeida Filho, a software engineer at Microsoft who has overseen the Rust for Linux project, announced his resignation in a message to the Linux kernel development mailing list. "I am retiring from the project," Filho declared. "After almost four years, I find myself lacking the energy and enthusiasm I once had to respond to some of the nontechnical nonsense, so it's best to leave it up to those who still have it in them." [...] Memory safety bugs are regularly cited as the major source of serious software vulnerabilities by organizations overseeing large projects written in C and C++. So in recent years there's been a concerted push from large developers like Microsoft and Google, and well as from government entities like the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, to use memory-safe programming languages -- among them Rust. Discussions about adding Rust to Linux date back to 2020 and were realized in late 2022 with the release of Linux 6.1. "I truly believe the future of kernels is with memory-safe languages," Filho's note continued. "I am no visionary but if Linux doesn't internalize this, I'm afraid some other kernel will do to it what it did to Unix."' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/24/09/02/194205 Cheers, Peter

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Public DNS Services
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 02 Sep '24

02 Sep '24

So I finally got connected to fibre today, and I was pleased to discover that the ISP (https://simplybroadband.co.nz/) offers IPv6 as well. Is this common nowadays? We all know about the public DNS services offered by Google (8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4) and Cloudflare (1.1.1.1, 1.0.0.1); did you know these addresses have names as well? And of course there are IPv6 addresses to go with the IPv4 ones. Try this command to find out all the related Google DNS services: host -a dns.google. (Yup, that’s “dns.google.”, no “.com” or anything else on the end.) That’s quite a breathtaking list of entries. For Cloudflare, try host one.one.one.one. Note that the “-a” option (“tell me everything”) doesn’t work with Cloudflare; quite a few online services are now imposing restrictions on these “all info” lookups, but clearly not Google, at least not on this domain: obviously they want it to remain easy for people to discover the services they’re offering.

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Linux 6.12 To Optionally Display A QR Code During Kernel Panics
by Peter Reutemann 31 Aug '24

31 Aug '24

'A new feature has been submitted for inclusion in Linux 6.12, allowing the display of a QR code when a kernel panic occurs using the DRM Panic handler. This QR code can capture detailed error information that is often missed in traditional text-based panic messages, making it more user-friendly. The feature, written in Rust, is optional and can be enabled via a specific build switch. This implementation follows similar ideas from other operating systems and earlier discussions in the Linux community.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/24/08/30/1856206 Cheers, Peter

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Malware Infiltrates Pidgin Messenger's Official Plugin Repository
by Peter Reutemann 31 Aug '24

31 Aug '24

'The Pidgin messaging app removed the ScreenShareOTR plugin from its third-party plugin list after it was found to be used to install keyloggers, information stealers, and malware targeting corporate networks. BleepingComputer reports: The plugin was promoted as a screen-sharing tool for secure Off-The-Record (OTR) protocol and was available for both Windows and Linux versions of Pidgin. According to ESET, the malicious plugin was configured to infect unsuspecting users with DarkGate malware, a powerful malware threat actors use to breach networks since QBot's dismantling by the authorities. [...] Those who installed it are recommended to remove it immediately and perform a full system scan with an antivirus tool, as DarkGate may be lurking on their system. After publishing our story, Pidgin's maintainer and lead developer, Gary Kramlich, notified us on Mastodon to say that they do not keep track of how many times a plugin is installed. To prevent similar incidents from happening in the future, Pidgin announced that, from now on, it will only accept third-party plugins that have an OSI Approved Open Source License, allowing scrutiny into their code and internal functionality.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/24/08/30/2047211 Cheers, Peter

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$50 2GB Raspberry Pi 5 comes with a lower price and a tweaked, cheaper CPU
by Peter Reutemann 30 Aug '24

30 Aug '24

'We're many months past the worst of the Raspberry Pi shortages, and the board is finally widely available at its suggested retail price at most sites without wait times or quantity limitations. One sign that the Pi Foundation is feeling more confident about the stock situation: the launch of a new 2GB configuration of the Raspberry Pi 5, available starting today for $50. That's $10 less than the 4GB configuration and $30 less than the 8GB version of the board. Raspberry Pi CEO Eben Upton writes that the 2GB version of the board includes a revised version of the Broadcom BCM2712C1 SoC that is slightly cheaper to manufacture. Upton says that the D0 stepping of the BCM2712C1 strips out some "dark silicon" built-in functionality that the Pi wasn't using but was still taking up space on the silicon die and increasing the cost of the chip. "From the perspective of a Raspberry Pi user, [the chip] is functionally identical to its predecessor: the same fast quad-core processor; the same multimedia capabilities; and the same PCI Express bus that has proven to be one of the most exciting features of the Raspberry Pi 5 platform," Upton writes. "However, it is cheaper to make, and so is available to us at somewhat lower cost. And this, combined with the savings from halving the memory capacity, has allowed us to take $10 out of the cost of the finished product." At $50, the price tag is still north of the baseline $35 price that the Pi started at for many years. The Pi 4 had a 1GB model for $35 when it launched, and there was a $35 2GB model available for a while in 2020, but widespread shortages and supply chain issues led to a "temporary" price increase in late 2021 that is, as of this writing, still in place. At least the 2GB Pi 5 is only $5 more expensive than the 2GB version of the Pi 4, which is still in stock for $45 at many retailers.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/08/new-2gb-raspberry-pi-5-option-knock… Cheers, Peter

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'Uncertainty' Drives LinkedIn To Migrate From CentOS To Azure Linux
by Peter Reutemann 30 Aug '24

30 Aug '24

'The Register's Liam Proven reports: Microsoft's in-house professional networking site is moving to Microsoft's in-house Linux. This could mean that big changes are coming for the former CBL-Mariner distro. Ievgen Priadka's post on the LinkedIn Engineering blog, titled Navigating the transition: adopting Azure Linux as LinkedIn's operating system, is the visible sign of what we suspect has been a massive internal engineering effort. It describes some of the changes needed to migrate what the post calls "most of our fleet" from the end-of-life CentOS 7 to Microsoft Azure Linux -- the distro that grew out of and replaced its previous internal distro, CBL-Mariner. This is an important stage in a long process. Microsoft acquired LinkedIn way back in 2016. Even so, as recently as the end of last year, we reported that a move to Azure had been abandoned, which came a few months after it laid off almost 700 LinkedIn staff -- the majority in R&D. The blog post is over 3,500 words long, so there's quite a lot to chew on -- and we're certain that this has been passed through and approved by numerous marketing and management people and scoured of any potentially embarrassing admissions. Some interesting nuggets remain, though. We enjoyed the modest comment that: "However, with the shift to CentOS Stream, users felt uncertain about the project's direction and the timeline for updates. This uncertainty created some concerns about the reliability and support of CentOS as an operating system." [...] There are some interesting technical details in the post too. It seems LinkedIn is running on XFS -- also the RHEL default file system, of course -- with the notable exception of Hadoop, and so the Azure Linux team had to add XFS support. Some CentOS and actual RHEL is still used in there somewhere. That fits perfectly with using any of the RHELatives. However, the post also mentions that the team developed a tool to aid with deploying via MaaS, which it explicitly defines as Metal as a Service. MaaS is a Canonical service, although it does support other distros -- so as well as CentOS, there may have been some Ubuntu in the LinkedIn stack as well. Some details hint at what we suspect were probably major deployment headaches. [...] Some of the other information covers things the teams did not do, which is equally informative. [...] ' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/24/08/28/2345255 Cheers, Peter

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Microsoft Donates the Mono Project To Wine
by Peter Reutemann 28 Aug '24

28 Aug '24

'Microsoft has decided to donate the Mono Project to the developers of Wine, FOSS that allows Windows applications to run on Unix-like operating systems. "Mono is a software platform designed to allow developers to easily create cross platform applications," notes GameOnLinux's Liam Dawe. "It is an open source implementation of Microsoft's .NET Framework based on the ECMA standards for C# and the Common Language Runtime." "Wine already makes use of Mono and this move makes sense with Microsoft focusing on open-source .NET and other efforts," adds Phoronix's Michael Larabel. "Formally handing over control of the upstream Mono project to WineHQ is a nice move by Microsoft rather than just letting the upstream Mono die off or otherwise forked." Microsoft's Jeff Schwartz announced the move on the Mono website and in a GitHub post: The Mono Project (mono/mono) ('original mono') has been an important part of the .NET ecosystem since it was launched in 2001. Microsoft became the steward of the Mono Project when it acquired Xamarin in 2016. The last major release of the Mono Project was in July 2019, with minor patch releases since that time. The last patch release was February 2024. We are happy to announce that the WineHQ organization will be taking over as the stewards of the Mono Project upstream at wine-mono / Mono - GitLab ( winehq.org) Source code in existing mono/mono and other repos will remain available, although repos may be archived. Binaries will remain available for up to four years. Microsoft maintains a modern fork of Mono runtime in the dotnet/runtime repo and has been progressively moving workloads to that fork. That work is now complete, and we recommend that active Mono users and maintainers of Mono-based app frameworks migrate to .NET which includes work from this fork. We want to recognize that the Mono Project was the first .NET implementation on Android, iOS, Linux, and other operating systems. The Mono Project was a trailblazer for the .NET platform across many operating systems. It helped make cross-platform .NET a reality and enabled .NET in many new places and we appreciate the work of those who came before us. Thank you to all the Mono developers!' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/27/2043216 Cheers, Peter

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OSMC Vero V
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 28 Aug '24

28 Aug '24

Just thought I’d mention, I got one of these gadgets <https://osmc.tv/> (the latest “Vero V” model) delivered to my doorstep today. This is to replace a Western Digital “WDTV” media streamer that I got from Dick Smith over a decade ago, that I have been getting more annoyed with. The OSMC software is built on Kodi, with some extra stuff of their own. You should be able to download it and set up your own installation, I just decided to get one of their boxes preassembled and preinstalled. They’re based in the UK. That WDTV box was always fussy about the kinds of files it would play, and what codecs and what bit rates etc it could cope with. When I tried something like .flv files for example, it would play OK if I didn’t try going fast forward/reverse, otherwise it would get stuck. Certain kinds of files could screw it up so badly, the only way to recover was to turn it off and on again. This new box is built on a much more modern Linux base, so I expect its media support will be correspondingly improved. Already it has started playing a .webm file, which the old box wouldn’t even look at. If anybody is curious to know more, just ask. I see there is even an online “store” of addons I can install, for extra capabilities.

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