- wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

Popular Chinese-Made Drone Is Found To Have Security Weakness
by Peter Reutemann 24 Jul '20

24 Jul '20

'Cybersecurity researchers revealed on Thursday a newfound vulnerability in an app that controls the world's most popular consumer drones, threatening to intensify the growing tensions between China and the United States. From a report: In two reports, the researchers contended that an app on Google's Android operating system that powers drones made by China-based Da Jiang Innovations, or DJI, collects large amounts of personal information that could be exploited by the Beijing government. Hundreds of thousands of customers across the world use the app to pilot their rotor-powered, camera-mounted aircraft. The world's largest maker of commercial drones, DJI has found itself increasingly in the cross hairs of the United States government, as have other successful Chinese companies. The Pentagon has banned the use of its drones, and in January the Interior Department decided to continue grounding its fleet of the company's drones over security fears. DJI said the decision was about politics, not software vulnerabilities. For months, U.S. government officials have stepped up warnings about the Chinese government's potentially exploiting weaknesses in tech products to force companies there to give up information about American users. Chinese companies must comply with any government request to turn over data, according to American officials. "Every Chinese technology company is required by Chinese law to provide information they obtain, or information stored on their networks, to Chinese authorities if requested to do so," said William R. Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center. "All Americans should be concerned that their images, biometrics, locational and other data stored on Chinese apps must be turned over to China's state security apparatus." The drone vulnerability, said American officials, is the kind of security hole that worries Washington.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/20/07/23/1437214 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/

1 0

Fawkes: Protecting Privacy against Unauthorized Deep Learning Models
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 23 Jul '20

23 Jul '20

This paper <http://people.cs.uchicago.edu/%7Eravenben/publications/abstracts/fawkes-use…>, presented at USENIX Security 2020, discusses techniques for allowing you to continue to share images of yourself online while making them resistant to automated exploitation by “deep-learning” facial-recognition software. The researchers found that they could make subtle distortions to facial images, imperceptible to the human eye, that would severely confuse recognition services from major providers like Microsoft and Amazon. (Found from Bruce Schneier <https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2020/07/fawkes_digital_.html>.)

1 0

We test Mozilla’s new Wireguard-based $5/mo VPN service
by Peter Reutemann 23 Jul '20

23 Jul '20

'Mozilla, the open source company best known for the Firefox Web browser, made its VPN service generally available in the United States this month. The cross-platform VPN is based on Wireguard and delivered in partnership with well-known and especially techie-friendly VPN provider Mullvad. Mullvad itself was, to the best of our knowledge, the first publicly available VPN provider to offer Wireguard support back in 2017. The Mozilla VPN service costs $4.95 per month and offers server endpoints in 30-plus countries. It currently has VPN clients available for Windows 10, Android, and iOS—but users of other operating systems, such as MacOS and Linux, are going to have to wait. Mozilla says that support for MacOS and Linux is coming soon—but unfortunately, even if you're an advanced user who understands Wireguard configs, you can't just roll your own connection now. The service authenticates via Firefox cloud account. When you sign up for a Mozilla VPN subscription, you'll be asked to create a Firefox account if you don't already have one. The Firefox account is an SSO (Single Sign On) service which uses oauth2, much like a Google account—but it's not tied to a Google account, so even if you sign up using a Gmail address tied to an Android device, that device won't be automatically logged in. Aside from the Firefox-based oauth2 integration, Mozilla's VPN appears to effectively be a Mullvad VPN, with a different client application and different billing entity. It is a bit less expensive through Mozilla, though—Mullvad costs €5 per month. This makes Mozilla's offering about $0.80 per month cheaper, at current exchange rates.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/07/we-test-mozillas-new-wireguard-base… 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/

1 0

Lambton Property Management Privacy Breach
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 22 Jul '20

22 Jul '20

A whole bunch of tenants who have had dealings with Lambton Property Management have had their confidential personal details compromised, according to TVNZ <https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/thousands-kiwis-could-have-had-…>, <https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/second-researcher-gains-access-…>. Neither of those articles gives much detail about the nature of the breach, but going to the source <https://cybernews.com/security/new-zealand-property-management-company-leak…> confirms it’s another instance of the all-too-frequent situation of an improperly-secured public cloud area.

1 0

Fwd: [NZLUG] Free intro course
by Peter Reutemann 22 Jul '20

22 Jul '20

Apologies for cross-posting... Cheers, Peter ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: DL Neil <...> Date: Wed, Jul 22, 2020 at 4:47 PM Subject: [NZLUG] Free intro course To: NZ Linux Users Group <nzlug(a)lists.nzoss.org.nz> Video-based course providing a basic introduction to Linux. Video 1. What are Linux, open source software, and a distribution? Video 2. Introduction to the shell Video 3. Kernel and user spaces Video 4. Orientation to the graphical user interface Video 5. File management in Linux Video 6. The file system hierarchy Video 7. Editing files using Vim Video 8. Organizing users and groups Video 9. File permissions Video 10. Managing software Video 11. Configuring networking Video 12. Controlling system startup processes Video 13. Introduction to containers Video 14. Overview of cockpit Video 15. Learning more about Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 https://www.redhat.com/en/services/training/rh024-red-hat-linux-technical-o… -- Regards, =dn _______________________________________________ NZLUG mailing list NZLUG(a)lists.nzoss.org.nz http://lists.nzoss.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/nzlug -- 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/

1 0

Incognito Mode Detection Still Works in Chrome Despite Promise To Fix
by Peter Reutemann 22 Jul '20

22 Jul '20

'Websites are still capable of detecting when a visitor is using Chrome's incognito (private browsing) mode, despite Google's efforts last year to disrupt the practice. From a report: It is still possible to detect incognito mode in Chrome, and all the other Chromium-based browsers, such as Edge, Opera, Vivaldi, and Brave, all of which share the core of Chrome's codebase. Furthermore, developers have taken the scripts shared last year and have expanded support to non-Chrome browsers, such as Firefox and Safari, allowing sites to block users in incognito mode across the board. Currently, there is no deadline for a new Chrome update to block incognito mode detections, however, today, Google might be interested more than ever in fixing this issue' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/20/06/04/1857211 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/

2 3

SUSE Releases Major Linux Update
by Peter Reutemann 22 Jul '20

22 Jul '20

'SUSE has released the next versions of its flagship operating system, SUSE Linux Enterprise (SLE) 15 Service Pack 2 and its latest infrastructure management program, SUSE Manager 4.1. ZDNet reports: SLE 15 SP2 is available on the x86-64, Arm, IBM POWER, IBM Z, and LinuxONE hardware architectures. This new Linux server edition is based on the Linux 5.3 kernel. This new kernel release includes upstream features such as utilization clamping support in the task scheduler, and power-efficient userspace waiting. Other new and noteworthy features include: - Support for migration from openSUSE Leap to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES). With this, you can try the free, community openSUSE Linux distro, and then, if you find it's a good choice for your business, upgrade to SLES. - Extended Package Search. By using the new Zypper, SUSE's command line package manager, command option -- zypper search-packages -- sysadmins can now search across all SUSE repositories, even unenabled ones. This makes it easier for administrators to find required software packages. - SLE Software Development Kit (SDK) is now integrated into SLE. Development packages are packaged alongside regular packages. - Python 3: SLE 15 offers full support for Python 3 development. SLE still supports Python 2 for the time being. - 389 Directory Server replaces OpenLDAP as the LDAP directory service. - Repository Mirroring Tool (RMT) replaces Subscription Management Tool (SMT). RMT allows mirroring SUSE repositories and custom repositories. You can then register systems directly with RMT. In environments with tightened security, RMT can also proxy other RMT servers. - Better business continuity with improved SLE Live Patching. SUSE claims Live Patching increases system uptime by up to 12 months. SLE Live Patching is also now available for IBM Z and LinuxONE mainframe architectures. As for SUSE Manager 4.1, this is an improved open-source infrastructure management and automation solution that lowers costs, identifies risk, enhances availability, and reduces complexity in edge, cloud, and data center environments. With SUSE Manager you can keep servers, VMs, containers, and clusters secure, healthy, compliant, and low maintenance whether in private, public, or hybrid cloud. That's especially important these days thanks to coronavirus pandemic IT staff disruptions. SUSE Manager 4.1 can also be used with the Salt DevOps program. Its vertical-market brother, SUSE Manager for Retail 4.1, is optimized and tailored specifically for retail. This release comes with enhancements for small store operations, enhanced offline capabilities and image management over Wi-Fi, and enhanced virtual machine management and monitoring capabilities. Simultaneously it can scale retail environments to tens of thousands of end-point devices and help modernize point-of-service rollouts.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/20/07/21/2152237 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/

1 0

Microsoft Brings Procmon To Linux
by Peter Reutemann 21 Jul '20

21 Jul '20

'ProcMon for Linux is Microsoft's newest open-source Linux software. ProcMon is a rewritten and re-imagined version of its Processor Monitor found on Windows within their Sysinternals suite. From a report: Microsoft explains, "The Procmon is a Linux reimagining of the classic Procmon tool from the Sysinternals suite of tools for Windows. Procmon provides a convenient and efficient way for Linux developers to trace the syscall activity on the system."' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/20/07/20/205232 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/

1 0

Source Code of Covid Tracker Ireland App Goes Global With Linux Project
by Peter Reutemann 21 Jul '20

21 Jul '20

'The Linux Foundation Public Health initiative has chosen the Covid Tracker Ireland app as one of its first two open-source Covid-19 projects. From a report: Since its launch, more than 1.3m people have downloaded the Covid Tracker Ireland app, which was developed to help track the future spread of the coronavirus. Now, the app has been chosen as one of the first two open-source contact-tracing projects by the newly established Linux Foundation Public Health (LFPH) initiative. Nearform, the Waterford-based company that developed the app with the HSE, has been made one of the initiative's seven premium members, along with Cisco, Doc.ai, Geometer, IBM, Tencent and VMware. Under the project name 'Covid Green', the source code of the Irish app is being made available for other public health authorities and their developers across the world to use and customise. As part of the agreement, Nearform will manage the source code repository on GitHub. In its announcement, the LFPH pointed to the "extraordinarily high" adoption rate of the Covid Tracker Ireland app.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/20/07/20/168224 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/

1 0

BadPower Attack Corrupts Fast Chargers To Melt or Set Your Device on Fire
by Peter Reutemann 21 Jul '20

21 Jul '20

'Chinese security researchers said they can alter the firmware of fast chargers to cause damage to connected (charging) systems, such as melt the components, or even set devices on fire. Iwastheone shares a report: The technique, named BadPower, was detailed last week in a report published by Xuanwu Lab, a research unit of Chinese tech giant Tencent. According to researchers, BadPower works by corrupting the firmware of fast chargers -- a new type of charger that was developed in the past few years to speed up charging times. A fast charger looks like any typical charger but works using special firmware. This firmware "talks" to a connected device and negotiates a charging speed, based on the device's capabilities. If a fast-charging feature is not supported, the fast charger delivers the standard 5V, but if the device can handle bigger inputs, the fast charger can deliver up to 12V, 20V, or even more, for faster charging speeds. The BadPower technique works by altering the default charging parameters to deliver more voltage than the receiving device can handle, which degrades and damages the receiver's components, as they heat up, bend, melt, or even burn.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/07/20/1624200 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/

1 0