- wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

Google Authenticator's First Android Update in Years Lets You Move Your Account Between Devices
by Peter Reutemann 08 May '20

08 May '20

'Google Authenticator, the company's code-based authentication app, has received its first update in three years, updating the app's interface for larger screens with more modern aspect ratios and delivering one of the platform's most-needed features. From a report: The Android version was last updated on August 22nd, 2017, while the iOS one was updated around a year ago to adjust it for iPhone X screens. Now, for the first time, Authenticator users will be able to easily transfer their account from one device to another without needing to manually transfer each code or disable and reenable two-factor authentication (2FA) on each account. The update introduces this feature through an import / export tool that lets you choose which accounts to include and transfer using a single QR code scan. It's a feature that competitor Authy has provided for quite some time, so it's refreshing to see it come to Authenticator, even if it's years late.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/05/07/1450227 Finally... Could have used that a while ago... 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/

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Caddy offers TLS, HTTPS, and more in one dependency-free Go Web server
by Peter Reutemann 07 May '20

07 May '20

'Yesterday, the Caddy Web server reached an important milestone, with its 2.0.0 release. Caddy bills itself as "The Ultimate Server," with no dependencies, automatic TLS certificate obtainment and renewal, and much smaller configuration files than Apache or Nginx. Senior Technology Editor Lee Hutchinson expressed both curiosity about Caddy and his own personal inertia in the Ars slack: Caddy is an app where every time i see it or think of it i say “I should mess with it, it looks neat” and then I never do. I’ve gotten so enmeshed in my haproxy - varnish - nginx stack that breaking out feels like more trouble than it’s worth. I hadn't ever heard of Caddy until Lee mentioned it, but I know a call to action when I hear one.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/05/caddy-offers-tls-https-and-more-in-… 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/

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Firefox 76 Arrives With Password Management and Zoom Improvements
by Peter Reutemann 06 May '20

06 May '20

'Mozilla today launched Firefox 76 for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Firefox 76 includes new Firefox Lockwise password functionality, Zoom improvements, and a handful of developer features. From a report: Lockwise, the password management service formerly known as Firefox Lockbox, is getting smarter. The Firefox feature already lets you generate, manage, and protect all those passwords for streaming services, grocery deliveries, and anything else that helps during the pandemic. If you share your device with family or roommates, Lockwise in Firefox 76 can now protect your saved passwords. When you try to view or copy a password from your "Logins and Passwords" page, you will be prompted for your device's account password. [...] Firefox 76 adds support for Audio Worklets, which run custom JavaScript audio processing code for applications like VR and gaming on the web. Unlike their predecessor, ScriptProcessorNode, worklets run off the main thread in a similar way to web workers. Mozilla also notes Audio Worklets are "being adopted by some of your favorite software programs." The company specifically called out Zoom, which has become a phenomenon of its own during the pandemic. In short, you now join Zoom calls in Firefox without having to download or install the Zoom client.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/05/05/160252 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/

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Xiaomi Releases Browser Update Amid Accusations It Collects Private Browsing Data
by Peter Reutemann 06 May '20

06 May '20

'Xiaomi released software updates for its browser apps on Monday amid fresh accusations it's been collecting private data from people who use its phones and browser apps. CNET reports: In a blog post, Xiaomi said the update will allow you to switch off aggregated data collection while on incognito mode in its three browser apps: Mi Browser, Mi Browser Pro, and Mint Browser. The software update was rolled out on Google Play. "We believe this functionality, in combination with our approach of maintaining aggregated data in non-identifiable form, goes beyond any legal requirements and demonstrates our company's commitment to user privacy," the company said in its post. The release of the software update comes after a Forbes report published last Thursday raised concerns about the Chinese phone-maker's use of private data. It suggested Xiaomi may be collecting data on the websites users visit as well as granular information about apps used and files opened on devices. In response to the report, Xiaomi defended its practices last week saying it's "fully compliant with user privacy protection laws and regulations in the countries and regions we operate in.' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/20/05/05/2013244 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/

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Ubuntu 20.04: Welcome to the future, Linux LTS disciples
by Peter Reutemann 05 May '20

05 May '20

'This is most definitely the strangest spring in a very long time, with all sorts of event and hardware delays or outright cancellations. But one thing that has arrived right on schedule? The latest version of Ubuntu Linux. Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal Fossa, as this release is known) is a Long Term Support (LTS) release, which means Ubuntu's parent company, Canonical, will provide support through 2025. The LTS releases are what Canonical calls "enterprise grade," and these tend to be conservative when it comes to adopting new technologies. The interim releases, like last year's Ubuntu 19.10, are instead where the company tends to experiment. Perhaps not surprisingly, Canonical estimates that 95 percent of all Ubuntu installations are LTS releases. Which is to say, this is a big update that the bulk of Ubuntu's user base will be upgrading to eventually. The good news for Ubuntu fans is that 20.04 has been a fantastic release in our testing. This update has been very solid in day-to-day use, and it still manages to (optionally!) include support for some cutting-edge new features, like the beginnings of a tool to manage ZFS snapshots. There's also a major kernel bump, and considerable work has gone into improving and polishing the default Yaru theme. That's a running theme in Ubuntu, where much of what makes it great are small changes and new features that individually might not be remarkable but all together create a system that is fast, stable, and hard to beat. The security improvements offered this time around almost alone make Ubuntu 20.04 a must-have upgrade. But the Ubuntu 20.04 update has plenty of new stuff for all the various Ubuntu flavors as well. So even if the default GNOME desktop doesn't excite you, there's big news in Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu Mate, and more. There's also some good news for Raspberry Pi users, who get first-class support for the Pi 4 platform out of the box (and when I say first class, I mean, frankly, better than the official Pi distro, Raspian).' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/05/ubuntu-20-04-welcome… 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/

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Academics Turn PC Power Units Into Speakers To Leak Secrets From Air-Gapped Systems
by Peter Reutemann 05 May '20

05 May '20

'Academics from an Israeli university have published new research last week showing how an attacker could turn a computer's power supply unit into a rudimentary speaker that can secretly transmit data from an infected host using audio waves. From a report: The technique, named POWER-SUPPLaY, is the work of Mordechai Guri, the head of R&D at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, in Israel. Over the last half-decade, Guri has been pioneering research into new covert data exfiltration channels. The techniques Guri has been developing can be used for stealing data through unconventional means. Guri has been developing these techniques specifically for extracting data from air-gapped systems -- computers isolated on local networks with no internet access. Such computers are often used on government or corporate networks to store sensitive data, such as classified files or intellectual property. Air-gapped systems are protected by several layers of defenses, on top of the "air gap," and you need novel data transmission techniques to go around these defenses. For example, some air-gapped systems don't have speakers, because it's been proven in the past that speakers could be abused to leak information from a secure system using inaudible sound waves.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/20/05/04/176208 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/

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Google Purged Almost 1,000 Abusive 'Creeperware' Apps. Now Some Are Coming Back.
by Peter Reutemann 05 May '20

05 May '20

'In June 2019, a group of cybersecurity researchers notified Google of more than 1,000 potentially malicious apps on the company's Play Store that can be used to surveil, monitor, and harass users. Their findings, which have not previously been reported, eventually led to one of the largest ever mass removals of Android apps. Less than a year later, there are signs that the "creeperware," as the researchers called it, is returning. From a report: The label comprises a broad category of abusable apps, including tools for spying, spoofing phone numbers, and secretly recording video and audio. Some of those programs banned by Google have now rebranded or added disclaimers and returned to the Play Store. Meanwhile, new programs with overtly abusive purposes have slipped through the company's automated monitoring systems. The initial 1,095 apps flagged by researchers came in a variety of forms. Catch Cheating Spouse and its ilk offered stalkerware packages: Once installed on a victim's phone, the user could track the device's location, read messages, listen to calls, remotely record through the microphone, or log passwords. Many of the programs had innocuous names but hostile purposes. Spoof Text Message, for example, advertised itself with a video using the tagline "Don't like your buddy's girlfriend? Well, break them up!" Others, like GirlFriend Cell Tracker, were more explicit in their motivation. "When we reported these apps to Google initially, it felt like they didn't really know what to do with them," said Kevin Roundy, the technical director of NortonLifeLock's research group, and one of the lead members of the team that uncovered the malicious apps last June.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/05/04/1528219 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/

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Hackers Breach LineageOS Servers Via Unpatched Vulnerability
by Peter Reutemann 05 May '20

05 May '20

'Hackers have gained access to the core infrastructure of LineageOS, a mobile operating system based on Android, used for smartphones, tablets, and set-top boxes. The intrusion took place on Saturday night at around 8 pm (US Pacific coast), and was detected before the attackers could do any harm, the LineageOS team said in a statement published less than three hours after the incident. The LineageOS team said the operating system's source code was unaffected, and so were any operating system builds, which had been already paused since April 30, because of an unrelated issue. Signing keys, used to authenticate official OS distributions, were also unaffected, as these hosts were stored separately from the LineageOS main infrastructure. LineageOS developers said the hack took place after the attacker used an unpatched vulnerability to breach its Salt installation.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/20/05/04/0341202 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/

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What Keeps Developers Happy? Contributing to Open Source
by Peter Reutemann 04 May '20

04 May '20

'This week long-time open source advocate Matt Asay warned employers that the best way to keep their developers happy was to let them contribute to open source projects: SlashData recently surveyed over 16,000 developers to see what makes them tick... what they care about. The data is collected in SlashData's State of the Developer Nation, though let me give you the tl;dr: 59% of developers contribute to open source software today. Why do they contribute? The top two reasons are: To improve coding skills and because they believe in open source. Want to keep those developers happy and employed with you? Let them contribute... [Y]our employees want to contribute both code and knowledge — they want to be part of something. Talking to Bert Hubert, founder of PowerDNS, a supplier of open source DNS software, services, and support, he stressed that an open source project must be "a fun place where people feel that they are learning things, that they're contributing things, that they're being valued." Perhaps not surprisingly, these are the same elements developers expect from their employers. By making open source a valued part of workplace expectations, employers tick both boxes. Is it an absolute requirement that you encourage your developers to contribute to open source projects? No. But many of your best developers will chafe at keeping their talents locked up behind the firewall, and other developers simply won't apply if you have a reputation for being an open source scrooge. The article was written by Matt Asay, a former COO of Canonical now working at AWS. (Right before becoming Canonical's COO, Matt answered questions from Slashdot readers). The survey he cites also found that out of 17,000 developers they talked to, just 3% said they were paid to contribute to open source. The other 97% contributed for free.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/05/03/1746244 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/

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Copyleft and the Cloud: Where Do We Go From Here?
by Peter Reutemann 04 May '20

04 May '20

'Free software evangelist Jeremy Allison - Sam (Slashdot reader #8,157) is a co-creator on the Samba project, a re-implementation of SMB/CIFS networking protocol, and he also works in Google's Open Source Programs Office. Now he shares his presentation at the Software Freedom Conservancy's "International Copyleft Conference." He writes: The Samba project has traditionally been one of the strongest proponents of Copyleft licensing and Free Software. However, in the Corporate Cloud-first world we find ourselves, traditional enforcement mechanisms have not been effective. How do we achieve the goals of the Free Software movement in this new world and how do we need to change what we're doing to be successful ? Traditional license enforcement doesn't seem to work well in the Cloud and for the modern software environment we find ourselves. In order to achieve the world of Free Software available for all I think we need to change our approach. Both GPLv3 and the AGPL have been rejected soundly by most developers. I would argue that we need a new way to inspire developers to adopt Free Software goals and principles, as depending on licensing has failed as licensing itself has fractured. Communication and collaboration are key to this. Stand-alone software is essentially useless. Software interoperability and published protocol and communication definitions are essential to build a freedom valuing software industry for the future The talk's title? "Copyleft and the Cloud: Where do we go from here?"' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/05/02/180237 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/

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Google's reCAPTCHA Is Being Used To Hide Phishing Pages
by Peter Reutemann 04 May '20

04 May '20

'New research from Barracuda Networks has revealed that cyber-criminals are increasingly using official reCAPTCHA walls to disguise malicious content from email security systems and trick unsuspecting users... [S]ophisticated scammers are beginning to use the Google-owned service to prevent automated URL analysis systems from accessing the actual content of phishing pages, and to make phishing sites more believable in the eyes of the victim, Barracuda Networks warned. In fact, the security solutions provider observed a single phishing campaign that sent out 128,000 emails to a variety of organizations and employees using reCAPTCHA walls to conceal fake Microsoft log-in pages. This campaign used the lure of a voicemail receipt to fool users into solving the reCAPTCHA wall before being redirected to the malicious page, with any log-in info entered then sent straight to the scammers.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/05/03/1613229 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/

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Join me in taking action
by Roderick Aldridge 01 May '20

01 May '20

I just took part in an Electronic Frontier Foundation campaign titled "Help Stop the Sale of Public Interest Registry to a Private Equity Firm". Will you join me? Take action here: https://act.eff.org/action/help-stop-the-sale-of-public-interest-registry-t… In case you haven't seen this. I expect a lot of FOSS people and organisations are at risk. Roderick

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ISP
by john 01 May '20

01 May '20

Hi All, I am convinced that my ISP has reduced the throttle on my UFB. They wrote and told me that due to the virus I was to get unlimited use (I had nearly 2TB of rollover) I used to think it a lucky day if I got 1.5MB but recently speeds over up to 3 MB are common. Cheers John

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Xiaomi Found Recording 'Private' Web and Phone Use, Researchers Claim
by Peter Reutemann 01 May '20

01 May '20

'According to an exclusive report from Forbes, cybersecurity researcher Gabi Cirlig discovered that his Xiaomi Redmi Note 8 smartphone was watching much of what he was doing and sending that data to remote servers hosted by Chinese tech giant Alibaba, which were ostensibly rented by Xiaomi. From the report: The seasoned cybersecurity researcher found a worrying amount of his behavior was being tracked, whilst various kinds of device data were also being harvested, leaving Cirlig spooked that his identity and his private life was being exposed to the Chinese company. When he looked around the Web on the device's default Xiaomi browser, it recorded all the websites he visited, including search engine queries whether with Google or the privacy-focused DuckDuckGo, and every item viewed on a news feed feature of the Xiaomi software. That tracking appeared to be happening even if he used the supposedly private "incognito" mode. The device was also recording what folders he opened and to which screens he swiped, including the status bar and the settings page. All of the data was being packaged up and sent to remote servers in Singapore and Russia, though the Web domains they hosted were registered in Beijing. Meanwhile, at Forbes' request, cybersecurity researcher Andrew Tierney investigated further. He also found browsers shipped by Xiaomi on Google Play -- Mi Browser Pro and the Mint Browser -- were collecting the same data. Together, they have more than 15 million downloads, according to Google Play statistics. Cirlig thinks that the problems affect many more models than the one he tested. In response to the findings, Xiaomi said, "The research claims are untrue," and "Privacy and security is of top concern," adding that it "strictly follows and is fully compliant with local laws and regulations on user data privacy matters." A spokesperson did however confirm it was collecting browsing data, claiming the info was anonymized and users had consented to it. Cirlig and Tierney pointed out that Xiaomi "was also collecting data about the phone, including unique numbers for identifying the specific device and Android version," reports Forbes. "Cirlig said such 'metadata' could 'easily be correlated with an actual human behind the screen.'" The researchers also say they found their Xiaomi apps to be sending data to domains that appeared to reference Sensor Analytics, which Xiaomi says "provides a data analysis solution for Xiaomi," adding that that the collected anonymous data "are stored on Xiaomi's own servers and will not be shared with Sensor Analytics, or any other third-party companies."' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/20/04/30/237249 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/

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Virtualization on the Linux desktop—Gnome Boxes vs virt-manager
by Peter Reutemann 01 May '20

01 May '20

'In the comments of our recent GhostBSD review, reader Enduzzer casually mentioned trying out the distribution in a Gnome Boxes VM. Linux's Kernel Virtual Machine has been a mainstay of my own system administration for more than a decade—but I use virt-manager, an excellent and deeply sysadmin-ish graphical management interface. I generally describe virt-manager as "simple"—and in many ways it's much simpler than Boxes is—but there are different ways to interpret simplicity.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/04/virtualization-on-the-linux-desktop… 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/

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Distro Showdown May
by tom butz 01 May '20

01 May '20

I have just checked microphone/camera on my Toshiba laptop running Mint 19.3: they're both ok for a remote meeting. What I could do is talk about the various Linuxes I have used, starting witn Tiny Linux, then Arch-Linux, then OpenBSD, then FreeBSD and finally Mint as well as Ubuntu14 as well as Sparky Linux. Maybe also a bit about my trials with GhostBSD. Why am I using more than 1? Mint 19.3 is the workhorse, Sparky does movies using conventional openshot as well as avidemux and Ubuntu 14 supports USB-tethering out of the box. USB-tethering is way faster than the alternatives and also very secure (as long as no-one nicks your phone). Tom Butz.

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Google Play has been spreading advanced Android malware for years
by Peter Reutemann 01 May '20

01 May '20

'Hackers have been using Google Play for years to distribute an unusually advanced backdoor capable of stealing a wide range of sensitive data, researchers said on Tuesday. Researchers from security firm Kaspersky Lab have recovered at least eight Google Play apps that date back to 2018, a Kaspersky Lab representative said, but based on archive searches and other methods, the researchers believe malicious apps from the same advanced group seeded Google’s official market since at least 2016. Google removed recent versions of the malware shortly after the researchers from Kaspersky, and earlier fellow security firm Dr. Web, reported them. Apps from earlier were already removed, and it’s not clear what prompted the move. Third-party markets have also hosted the backdoored apps, and many of them remain available. Command-and-control domains were registered as early as 2015, raising the possibility the operation goes back earlier than 2016. Code in the malware and command servers it connects to contain several overlaps with a known hacking group dubbed OceanLotus (aka APT32, APT-C-00, and SeaLotus), leading researchers to believe the apps are the work of that advanced group.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/04/sophisticated-androi… 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/

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Fairphone 3 Now Available With 'de-Googled' Android /e/OS
by Peter Reutemann 01 May '20

01 May '20

'Fairphone, the European manufacturer of mobile phones with a reduced environmental impact, has announced a partnership to offer /e/OS, the most "de-Googled" and pro-privacy Android OS, on their latest model Fairphone 3. An interesting move that reminds me of the recent introduction of the Google-free Huawei Mate 30. A pithy explainer of its "privacy by design ecosystem" -- and the point of "Android without Google" -- further notes: "We have removed many pieces of code that send your personal data to remote servers without your consent. We don't scan your data in your phone or in your cloud space, and we don't track your location a hundred times a day or collect what you're doing with your apps." According to TechCrunch, the e/OS variant of the Firephone 3 ships from May 6, priced at just under 480 euros -- "a 30 euro premium on the Googley flavor of Android you get on the standard Fairphone 3." The report adds that existing owners of the Fairphone 3 can manually install /e/OS gratis via an installer on its website.' -- source: https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/20/04/29/2131230 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/

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Raspberry Pi Gains a New 12.3-Megapixel Camera and Interchangeable Lenses
by Peter Reutemann 01 May '20

01 May '20

'The Raspberry Pi can be used for all sorts of maker projects, and the foundation has offered camera modules for it since 2013, adding vision-related functionality. The first module was a modest 5-megapixel affair that was eventually replaced by an 8-megapixel Sony sensor four years ago. Today, sees the arrival of a new much higher 12.3 megapixel quality camera, and a range of interchangeable lenses. >From a report: The new camera is compatible with all Raspberry Pi models -- from Pi 1 Model B onwards -- with the exception of early Pi Zero boards. The camera is available to buy from today for $50.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/04/30/1554232 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/

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Predictive Text Patent Troll Tries To Shake Down Wikipedia
by Peter Reutemann 30 Apr '20

30 Apr '20

'WordLogic (patent troll) claims it has the rights of the concept of predictive text writing and went after the Wikimedia foundation. WordLogic offered a "discounted, lump sum fee of $30,000 in exchange for a paid-up one-time license," an easy win they thought, but Wikimedia fought back. "Wikimedia notes that (1) WordLogic's patents are invalid due to prior art, (2) that they are invalid for not covering patentable subject matter, and (3) that anyway, it doesn't even infringe on the patents if they were valid," reports Techdirt. Now we are waiting to see what will happen. Will the patent troll desist, or will it push forward?' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/04/29/216210 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/

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The Data Hoarders
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 30 Apr '20

30 Apr '20

Turns out there’s a whole Reddit subforum devoted to the subject of digital data hoarding. And of course the activity has a long history, from well before the era of digital electronic computers <https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/04/digital-hoarders-our-terabytes-are-p…>.

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A bit of light relief!!
by john 30 Apr '20

30 Apr '20

A plain computer illiterate guy rings tech support to report that his computer is faulty. Tech: What’s the problem? User: There is smoke coming out of the power supply. Tech: (keep quite) Tech: You’ll need a new power supply. User: No, I don’t! I just need to change the startup files. Tech: Sir, the power supply is faulty. You’ll need to replace it. User: No way! Someone told me that I just needed to change the startup and it will fix the problem! All I need is for you to tell me the command. Tech support:: 10 minutes later, the User is still adamant that he is right. The tech is frustrated and fed up. Tech support:: (hush hush) Tech: Sorry, Sir. We don’t normally tell our customers this, but there is an undocumented DOS command that will fix the problem. User: I knew it! Tech : Just add the line LOAD NOSMOKE.COM at the end of the CONFIG.SYS. Let me know how it goes. 10 minutes later. User : It didn’t work. The power supply is still smoking. Tech : Well, what version of DOS are you using? User : MS-DOS 6.22 . Tech : That’s your problem there. That version of DOS didn’t come with NOSMOKE. Contact Microsoft and ask them for a patch that will give you the file. Let me know how it goes. 1 hour later. User : I need a new power supply. Tech support : How did you come to that conclusion? Tech support : (hush hush) User : Well, I rang Microsoft and told him about what you said, and he started asking questions about the make of power supply. Tech: Then what did he say? User: He told me that my power supply isn’t compatible with NOSMOKE. Cheers John..

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OS Vulnerabilities
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 29 Apr '20

29 Apr '20

While fixes for security bugs on the Linux platform usually come out quickly, there do seem to be a lot of laggards in deploying them <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/28/vulnerabilities_report_9_million/>. Why is this? The researchers speculate that "Windows admins are more accustomed to regular reboots after decades of conditioning," while "tooling for managing Linux fleets at scale generally lags behind that of Windows." Also perhaps the Linux installations include a lot of embedded/IoT devices that never get manufacturer updates.

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Alternatives To The OOM Killer
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 29 Apr '20

29 Apr '20

By default, if a process asks for more (virtual) memory, the Linux kernel never says no. (It can be easily configured to do so, if you want.) Therefore, it is possible for a process to try to access more memory than the system has available. This situation triggers the dreaded “OOM Killer” <https://lwn.net/Articles/317814/>, which hunts around for resource-hogging processes and kills them according to a priority scheme that nobody quite understands. To avoid things getting this bad, various people have come up with alternatives in the form of userspace daemons that monitor system resource usage, and implement their own (configurable) rules for killing processes before things get dire enough to wake up the OOM Killer. The announcement of Fedora 32 mentions <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/28/red_hat_summit/> the inclusion of one of these solutions, “EarlyOOM”. Looking at the project’s <https://github.com/rfjakob/earlyoom> readme page shows mention of two others: “nohang” (written in Python) and “oomd” (from Facebook). I see all three available as standard Debian packages, at least as of Debian Unstable.

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One Space Or Two?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 29 Apr '20

29 Apr '20

>From the “Yet Another Subject For A Holy War” Department, Microsoft is planning for the next update to Word to flag two spaces after a full stop and before the next sentence as a typo <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/27/microsoft_roundup/>. Two spaces after a full stop was long-standing practice for typewritten text, and carried over to some extent to computer users. But with the advent of WYSIWYG word processing and proportional fonts, it became more common to adopt the practice of typeset text, and only put one space after a full stop, before the next sentence. Where do you stand? Microsoft ran a poll on the question, and it seems the majority favoured a single space.

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Lenovo is joining Dell in the “OEM Linux Laptop” club
by Peter Reutemann 28 Apr '20

28 Apr '20

'It looks like Lenovo may upstage Dell as the big name in OEM Linux laptops—not counting specialty retailers like System76, of course. Red Hat and Lenovo are announcing pre-installed and factory-supported Fedora Workstation on several models of ThinkPad laptops at Red Hat Summit this week. Dell's Linux support has generally been limited to one or two very specific laptops—first, the old Atom-powered netbooks and, more recently, the XPS 13 Developer Edition line. Lenovo is planning a significantly broader Linux footprint in its lineup. Fedora Workstation will be a selectable option during purchase for the Thinkpad P1 Gen2, Thinkpad P53, and Thinkpad X1 Gen8 laptops—and Lenovo may offer even broader model support in the future. Lenovo Senior Linux Developer Mark Pearson, who will be the featured guest in the May 2020 Fedora Council Video Meeting, expresses the company's stance on forthcoming integration: "Lenovo is excited to become a part of the Fedora community. We want to ensure an optimal Linux experience on our products. We are committed to working with and learning from the open source community."' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/04/lenovo-is-joining-dell-in-the-oem-l… 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

Hackers Are Exploiting a Sophos Firewall Zero-day
by Peter Reutemann 28 Apr '20

28 Apr '20

'Cyber-security firm Sophos has published an emergency security update to patch a zero-day vulnerability in its XG enterprise firewall product that was being abused in the wild by hackers. From a report: Sophos said it first learned of the zero-day on late Wednesday, April 22, after it received a report from one of its customers. The customer reported seeing "a suspicious field value visible in the management interface." After investigating the report, Sophos determined this was an active attack and not an error in its product. "The attack used a previously unknown SQL injection vulnerability to gain access to exposed XG devices," Sophos said in a security advisory today. Hackers targeted Sophos XG Firewall devices that had their administration (HTTPS service) or the User Portal control panel exposed on the internet. Sophos said the hackers used the SQL injection vulnerability to download a payload on the device. This payload then stole files from the XG Firewall.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/04/27/162211 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

New CPU Performance Testing Concludes AMD Beats Intel
by Peter Reutemann 27 Apr '20

27 Apr '20

'If you're looking for the best gaming CPU or the best CPU for desktop applications, there are only two choices to pick from: AMD and Intel. That fact has spawned an almost religious following for both camps, and the resulting flamewars, that make it tricky to get unbiased advice about the best choice for your next processor. But in many cases, the answer is actually very clear. In fact, for most users, it's a blowout win in AMD's favor. That's an amazing reversal of fortunes for the chipmaker after it teetered on the edge of bankruptcy a mere three years ago, making its turnaround all the more impressive as it continues to upset the entrenched Intel that enjoyed a decade of dominance... Pricing is the most important consideration for almost everyone, and AMD is hard to beat in the value department. The company offers a plethora of advantages, like bundled coolers and full overclockability on all models, not to mention complimentary software that includes the innovative Precision Boost Overdrive auto-overclocking feature. You also benefit from the broad compatibility of Socket AM4 motherboards that support both forward and backward compatibility, ensuring that not only do you get the most bang for your processor buck, but also your motherboard investment. AMD also allows overclocking on all but its A-Series motherboards (see our article on how to overclock AMD Ryzen), which is another boon for users. And, in this battle of AMD vs Intel CPUs, we haven't even discussed the actual silicon yet. AMD's modern processors tend to offer either more cores or threads and faster PCIe 4.0 connectivity at every single price point. "We're not covering laptop or server chips," the article notes, adding "There's a clear winner overall, but which brand of CPU you should buy depends most on what kind of features, price and performance are important to you." Still, it's noteworthy that AMD beats Intel in 7 out of 10 comparisons. The three in which Intel won were gaming performance ("only because we measure strictly by the absolute top performance possible"), drivers and software ("the company has an army of software developers [and] a decade of dominance also finds most software developers optimizing almost exclusively for Intel architectures"), and overclocking, where Intel "has far more headroom and much higher attainable frequencies. "Just be prepared to pay for the privilege."' -- source: https://slashdot.org/story/20/04/26/1622236 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

distro showdown for virtual meeting in May?
by Peter Reutemann 26 Apr '20

26 Apr '20

Hi everyone What about a distro showdown for our (virtual) WLUG meeting in May? For instance: - GhostBSD - Ubuntu 20.04 - Manjaro - Arch - Gentoo - ... People can just demo a single distro for a few minutes via BigBlueButton (you can share your screen real easy with BBB). Thoughts? Volunteers? 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 1

Virtual meetings?
by Peter Reutemann 24 Apr '20

24 Apr '20

Hi everyone Our last meeting moved to virtual Google Hangout on short notice, which probably explained the low turnout. My question is, whether speakers and attendees would be willing to move to virtual ones, to keep our little community together and going? The last meeting was done with Google Hangouts, as it allows sharing the screen as well. Doesn't have to be Hangouts, it was simply convenient as a lot of people have gmail accounts. Open to viable alternatives. Stay safe! 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/

4 7

Why You Need A Bigger OS Partition
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 24 Apr '20

24 Apr '20

root(a)theon:~ # apt-get install games-all Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done The following additional packages will be installed: 0ad 0ad-data 0ad-data-common 7kaa 7kaa-data a7xpg a7xpg-data abe abe-data ace-of-penguins alex4 alex4-data armagetronad armagetronad-common asc asc-data asc-music atomix atomix-data bastet beep berusky berusky-data biniax2 biniax2-data blobby blobby-data bloboats blobwars blobwars-data blockattack bsdgames btanks btanks-data burgerspace bzflag-client bzflag-data caveexpress caveexpress-data cgoban chromium-bsu chromium-bsu-data cultivation darkplaces dreamchess dreamchess-data empire enigma enigma-data enigma-doc epiphany epiphany-data extremetuxracer extremetuxracer-data famfamfam-flag-png flare-engine flare-game flightgear flightgear-data-ai flightgear-data-all flightgear-data-base flightgear-data-models flightgear-phi ... ufoai-sound ufoai-textures unknown-horizons warmux warmux-data warzone2100 warzone2100-data warzone2100-music wesnoth wesnoth-1.14 wesnoth-1.14-aoi wesnoth-1.14-core wesnoth-1.14-data wesnoth-1.14-did wesnoth-1.14-dm wesnoth-1.14-dw wesnoth-1.14-ei wesnoth-1.14-httt wesnoth-1.14-l wesnoth-1.14-low wesnoth-1.14-music wesnoth-1.14-nr wesnoth-1.14-sof wesnoth-1.14-sota wesnoth-1.14-sotbe wesnoth-1.14-thot wesnoth-1.14-trow wesnoth-1.14-tsg wesnoth-1.14-ttb wesnoth-1.14-utbs widelands widelands-data xmoto xmoto-data Suggested packages: 7kaa-music bzflag-server freeciv-client-extras freeciv-sound-standard fretsonfire-game games-adventure games-arcade games-board games-c++-dev games-card games-chess games-console games-content-dev games-education games-emulator games-fps games-java-dev games-minesweeper games-mud games-perl-dev games-platform games-programming games-puzzle games-python3-dev games-racing games-rogue games-rpg games-shootemup games-simulation games-sport games-strategy games-tetris games-toys games-typing libopenal0a libsimage-dev libbullet2 libjs-jquery-flot-docs libjs-angularjs libswt-gtk-4-java minissdpd mumble minetest-mod-moreblocks minetest-mod-moreores minetest-mod-pipeworks minetest-server minetestmapper xqf openttd-opensfx pioneers-metaserver freecell-solver-bin pysolfc-cardsets python3-pil.imagetk-dbg python-pygame-doc spring-javaai teeworlds-server ufoai-server ufoai-uforadiant Recommended packages: fretsonfire The following NEW packages will be installed: ... 0 upgraded, 327 newly installed, 0 to remove and 86 not upgraded. Need to get 9,962 MB of archives. After this operation, 14.7 GB of additional disk space will be used. Do you want to continue? [Y/n] Time was when 30-40GB was sufficient for an OS partition. But not any more. This is why, when I upgraded my boot drive a few weeks ago, I allocated 100GB for the OS.

1 0

When in Doubt: Hang Up, Look Up, and Call Back
by Peter Reutemann 24 Apr '20

24 Apr '20

'Many security-conscious people probably think they'd never fall for a phone-based phishing scam. But if your response to such a scam involves anything other than hanging up and calling back the entity that claims to be calling, you may be in for a rude awakening. Brian Krebs: Here's how one security and tech-savvy reader got taken for more than $10,000 in an elaborate, weeks-long ruse. Today's lesson in how not to get scammed comes from "Mitch," the pseudonym I picked for a reader in California who shared his harrowing tale on condition of anonymity. Mitch is a veteran of the tech industry -- having worked in security for several years at a fairly major cloud-based service -- so he's understandably embarrassed that he got taken in by this confidence scheme. On Friday, April 17, Mitch received a call from what he thought was his financial institution, warning him that fraud had been detected on his account. Mitch said the caller ID for that incoming call displayed the same phone number that was printed on the back of his debit card. But Mitch knew enough of scams to understand that fraudsters can and often do spoof phone numbers. So while still on the phone with the caller, he quickly logged into his account and saw that there were indeed multiple unauthorized transactions going back several weeks. Most were relatively small charges -- under $100 apiece -- but there were also two very recent $800 ATM withdrawals from cash machines in Florida. If the caller had been a fraudster, he reasoned at the time, they would have asked for personal information. But the nice lady on the phone didn't ask Mitch for any personal details. Instead, she calmly assured him the bank would reverse the fraudulent charges and said they'd be sending him a new debit card via express mail. After making sure the representative knew which transactions were not his, Mitch thanked the woman for notifying him, and hung up. The following day, Mitch received another call about suspected fraud on his bank account. Something about that conversation didn't seem right, and so Mitch decided to use another phone to place a call to his bank's customer service department -- while keeping the first caller on hold. "When the representative finally answered my call, I asked them to confirm that I was on the phone with them on the other line in the call they initiated toward me, and so the rep somehow checked and saw that there was another active call with Mitch," he said. "But as it turned out, that other call was the attackers also talking to my bank pretending to be me."' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/20/04/23/1933254 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

NordVPN Unveils First Mainstream WireGuard Virtual Private Network
by Peter Reutemann 23 Apr '20

23 Apr '20

'One of the largest VPN companies, NordVPN, is rolling out NordLynx -- it's first mainstream WireGuard virtual private network for its Windows, Mac, Android and iOS client-software applications. ZDNet reports: NordVPN's own tests have shown NordLynx easily outperforms the other protocols, IKEv2/IPsec and OpenVPN. How much faster? According to NordVPN's 256,886 speed tests, "When a user connects to a nearby VPN server and downloads content that's served from a content delivery network (CDN) within a few thousand miles/kilometers, they can expect up to twice higher download and upload speed." While speed is what customers will notice, security experts like WireGuard for its code's simplicity. With only about 4,000 lines of code, WireGuard's code can be comprehensively reviewed by a single individual. Besides WireGuard, NordVPN adds in its double Network Address Translation (NAT) system to protect users' privacy. This enables users to establish a secure VPN connection while storing no identifiable user data on a server. You're assigned a dynamic local IP address that remains assigned only while the session is active. User authentication is done with the help of a secure external database. To switch to NordLynx, users need to update their NordVPN app to the latest version. The NordLynx protocol can be chosen manually from the Settings menu. ' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/04/22/2029227 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

From The “Too Much Time On Their Hands” Department ...
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 23 Apr '20

23 Apr '20

... comes this pure-CSS recreation <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/22/windows_98_css/> of the “Windows-98” look for your web pages. Personally, I can relate to this comment of the author: “Buttons just don't look like buttons anymore, it's so sad”. Basically, UI experts nowadays seem to be concentrating more on fashion, and the whole concept of “usability testing” has gone out the window.

1 0

Stripe Is Silently Recording Your Movements On Its Customers' Websites
by Peter Reutemann 23 Apr '20

23 Apr '20

'Michael Lynch, blogger and former software engineer at Microsoft and Google, discovered that the payment processing platform Stripe and its official JavaScript library records all browsing activity on its customers' websites and reports it back to the company. Lynch says this data includes the following: 1. Every URL the user visits on my site, including pages that never display Stripe payment forms 2. Telemetry about how the user moves their mouse cursor while browsing my site 3. Unique identifiers that allow Stripe to correlate visitors to my site against other sites that accept payment via Stripe In his blog post, Lynch shares what he found, who else it affects, and how you can limit Stripe's data collection in your web applications. Here's how he says he made the discovery: I discovered this by accident while adding paid plans to my portfolio rebalancer. As part of development, I was using an HTTP proxy that allows me to inspect HTTP traffic from my browser. After successfully implementing my app's payment flow with Stripe, I noticed that every page navigation generated a new HTTP POST request to a Stripe URL. This was strange because none of the pages I visited contained any calls to Stripe's library. In fact, my app doesn't collect payment information from users until they create an account, but Stripe was making HTTP requests when I landed on my app's homepage as a brand new user with no cookies or stored credentials. "I looked around for an official disclosure from Stripe about this behavior, but I couldn't find anything," adds Lynch. "The closest I found is this vague paragraph on their npm package description, which the Stripe support rep quoted to me: 'To best leverage Stripe's advanced fraud functionality, ensure that Stripe.js is loaded on every page, not just your checkout page. This allows Stripe to detect anomalous behavior that may be indicative of fraud as customers browse your website.'" "The privacy policy is a bit more specific about the data they collect, but it implies that they're collecting this data on stripe.com rather than on customer sites," writes Lynch. "Worryingly, the privacy policy also includes loose wording that allows Stripe to sell this data to advertisers: 'When you visit our Sites or online services, both we and certain third parties collect information about your online activities over time and across different sites to provide you with advertising about products and services tailored to your individual interests.'"' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/20/04/22/0023222 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 1

Vivaldi Browser Gets Built-in Tracking Blocker, Goes GA on Android
by Peter Reutemann 23 Apr '20

23 Apr '20

'Vivaldi, the browser launched by former Opera CEO Jon von Tetzchner, has long positioned itself as a highly customizable alternative to Chrome and Firefox for power users. Today, the team is launching version 3.0 of its desktop browser, with built-in tracker and ad blockers, and it's bringing its Android browser out of beta. From a report: I've long been a fan of Vivaldi, but the company was relatively late to the tracking protection game. Now it's doubling down by integrating a blocklist powered by DuckDuckGo's Tracker Radar. Like competing browsers, Vivaldi offers three blocking levels that users can easily toggle on and off for individual websites. Those blocking levels are relatively blunt, though, with the options to either block trackers, block trackers and ads, or disable blocking. Competitors like Edge offer slightly more nuanced options for blocking trackers, though I would expect Vivaldi to adopt a similar scheme over time.' -- source: https://slashdot.org/story/20/04/22/1550251 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

Edge TV Now Online-Only
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 22 Apr '20

22 Apr '20

If there is anybody else besides me who wondered what happened to Edge TV, as of the beginning of this month it is no longer on Freeview, it can now only be viewed as an online stream <https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/tv-radio/113928839/the-edge-tv-remove…>. In the last few days of June, there was a promo announcing that it was going HD, but I don’t recall it mentioning that it was leaving the broadcast airwaves. Quote: MediaWorks chief executive Michael Anderson says the move is in line with audience trends, which show people primarily consume music videos online. While that may be mostly true, personally I would go look for videos on YouTube after seeing them first on Edge TV.

6 12

Discord Switching From Go To Rust
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 22 Apr '20

22 Apr '20

Came across this blog post <https://blog.discordapp.com/why-discord-is-switching-from-go-to-rust-a190bb…> explaining why Discord, which has been using Google’s Go language to implement its services, has now decided to rewrite them in Mozilla’s Rust. The problem was garbage collection. Go has a similar memory-allocation model to Java or LISP, where you can create objects and simply forget about them when you don’t need them any more, and a background process will automatically reclaim the storage at some point. The trouble is, that reclamation process (the “garbage collector”) tends to be the source of performance bottlenecks in the system. Not to mention that the memory usage of your program can grow to fill all available space, unless you impose arbitrary limits on it. Languages like Perl and Python use a hybrid model, where objects have reference counts attached to them, keeping track of how many other objects or variables still point to them, so they can be automatically freed when the count goes to zero. There are cases where this isn’t enough, and in those cases a full garbage-collection process kicks in. One benefit that I certainly observe with this is that memory usage for a program can remain reasonable, even after it has been running for a long time. Rust avoids the whole issue in a clever way, by having the compiler enforce memory-ownership restrictions in the language itself, so memory can be correctly allocated and freed without resorting to a garbage collector. The result is that Rust can achieve significantly higher performance than Go, while avoiding most of the attendant risks of dumping the whole responsibility for memory management on the programmer, as is done in languages like C++ and C.

1 1

Google Wants To Phase Out Browser User-Agent Strings
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 21 Apr '20

21 Apr '20

Google wants to reduce the large amount of information browsers typically pack into the “User-Agent” header lines they send out, but this has been delayed for now <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/20/google_useragent_string_revision/>. This makes sense. Sites should not be changing their behaviour based on how browsers identify themselves, but on what functionality they actually support. But I wonder what this will mean for sites that routinely block the default user agents for scripting tools like wget and Python’s urllib ... But who is objecting to Google’s plan? Advertisers, who are apparently relying on user-agent checks as an important part of their mechanism for detecting ad fraud. Which is quite an incredible admission, really.

1 0

GhostBSD
by tom butz 21 Apr '20

21 Apr '20

There still are several BSDs around: OpenBSD, NetBSD, FreeBSD, TrueOS and GhostBSD. They usually lack desktops, but GhostBSD has got one, and it looks good. I started with the latest version, 20 something: that one didn't work properly for me Then I used 18.10 where there were issues with the LAN, and finally everything worked using 19.10 - both on my laptop and an old Macmini. BTW, I've also installed it on an external USB3-drive (500 GB) and it can boot from it. GhostBSD supports the ZFS-filesystem and will read/write from/to msdos and linux filesystems. I haven't tried writing to an ext4 system, only read from ext-sticks. You need to do some extra work to enable read/write to extfat. LAN and WiFi worked well and Firefox is very fast. My laptop has 6 GB of RAM and I ran everything in single-user mode, just to get some extra speed. Thanks go to Peter who found the older versions on a US-server - GhostBSD is made in Canada. Tom Butz.

1 0

XCP-ng Motors Along
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 20 Apr '20

20 Apr '20

First I heard of this XCP-ng project, which aims to produce an open-source version (!) of XenServer <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/20/xcpng_100000_download_milestone_an…>. To add to the surprise, it is actually getting support from the Xen Project.

1 0

As Raspberry Pi Sales Skyrocket, Eben Upton Applauds Efforts of Open Hardware Community
by Peter Reutemann 20 Apr '20

20 Apr '20

'"Sales of Raspberry Pi's single-board computers hit 640,000 in March, the second-biggest month for sales since they started selling," reports TechRepublic, "as consumers flocked to inexpensive ways to work and learn from home." But that's not all, Eben Upton tells them: With the pandemic having highlighted shortages in personal protective equipment (PPE), 3D-printing manufacturers and hobbyists have been building face shields printed on plastic acetate that can be quickly assembled and delivered to hospitals, for free. "A lot of that is Pi-driven," Upton explained, noting that OctoPrint, which is the most popular platform for managing 3D printers, runs on Raspberry Pi... "[M]aking face shields seems to be a community effort. You have people with a home printer, printing these things once a week and then going to a post office and sending them," he said. "Then you'll have some people sat in a hack space receiving the parcels, cutting the acetate and the elastic, assembling them into face shields then sending them to the hospital. It's amazing." Upton suggested this effort could eventually be ramped up to a "massively distributed scale", with the benefit of open source being that, once you have a good design that works, it can be rapidly iterated. In the long term, this could even include the ventilators themselves, he said. "One thing we're seeing with this is people finding a niche within which open hardware really works," he said. ' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/04/19/0154201 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

Will Companies Cut Open Source Investment Because of COVID-19?
by Peter Reutemann 20 Apr '20

20 Apr '20

'The editor of TFIR posed an interesting question to Rob Hirschfeld, the Founder/CEO of RackN (which automates and integrates bare-metal infrastructure). Will the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic affect the sustainability of open source software? Hirschfeld responded: "The idea that big companies are maintaining open-source projects for the community good is going to get tested, as companies look for places where they can conserve revenue. I think that's a really critical thing." "The same is going to be true with open-source startups that are hoping to monetize support or consulting but have no real gate across the front of their infrastructure... Companies might decide they can use the open-source project and not pay the sustaining engineers that are working in that project. "These are really serious concerns about the whole open-source model, which relies on goodwill and free money."' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/04/19/0452247 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

Supply-chain attack hits RubyGems repository with 725 malicious packages
by Peter Reutemann 20 Apr '20

20 Apr '20

'More than 725 malicious packages downloaded thousands of times were recently found populating RubyGems, the official channel for distributing programs and code libraries for the Ruby programming language. The malicious packages were downloaded almost 100,000 times, although a significant percentage of those are likely the result of scripts that automatically crawl all 158,000 packages available in the repository, Tomislav Pericin, the cofounder and chief software architect of security firm ReversingLabs, told Ars. All of them originated from just two user accounts: “JimCarrey” and “PeterGibbons.” The accounts, which ReversingLabs suspects may be the work of a single individual, used a variation of typosquatting—the technique of giving a malicious file or domain a name that's similar to a commonly recognizable name—to give the impression they were legitimate. For instance, “atlas-client,” a booby-trapped package with 2,100 downloads, was a stand-in for the authentic “atlas_client” package. More than 700 of the packages were uploaded from February 16 to 25.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/04/725-bitcoin-stealing… 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

New Cloudflare tool can tell you if your ISP has deployed BGP fixes
by Peter Reutemann 20 Apr '20

20 Apr '20

'For more than an hour at the beginning of April, major sites like Google and Facebook sputtered for large swaths of people. The culprit wasn't a hack or a bug. It was problems with the internet data routing standard known as the Border Gateway Protocol, which had allowed significant amounts of web traffic to take an unexpected detour through a Russian telecom. For Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince, it was the last straw. BGP disruptions happen frequently, generally by accident. But BGP can also be hijacked for large-scale spying, data interception, or as a sort of denial of service attack. Just last week, United States Executive Branch agencies moved to block China Telecom from offering services in the US, because of allegedly malicious activity that includes BGP attacks. Companies like Cloudflare sit on the front lines of the BGP blowback. And while the company can't fix the problem directly, it can call out those that are slow to contribute defenses.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/04/new-cloudflare-tool-… 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

Growth In Surveillance May Be Hard To Scale Back After Pandemic, Experts Say
by Peter Reutemann 19 Apr '20

19 Apr '20

Long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo quotes the Guardian: 'The coronavirus pandemic has led to an unprecedented global surge in digital surveillance, researchers and privacy advocates around the world have said, with billions of people facing enhanced monitoring that may prove difficult to roll back. Governments in at least 25 countries are employing vast programmes for mobile data tracking, apps to record personal contact with others, CCTV networks equipped with facial recognition, permission schemes to go outside and drones to enforce social isolation regimes. The methods have been adopted by authoritarian states and democracies alike and have opened lucrative new markets for companies that extract, sell, and analyse private data. One of the world's foremost experts on mobile phone surveillance said the pandemic had created a '9/11 on steroids' that could lead to grave abuses of power. "Most of these measures don't have sunset clauses. They could establish what many people are describing as a new normal," Ron Deibert, who heads the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, said in an interview with the Guardian. The article provides examples from China, Russia, India, Europe, and the United States, and provides a link to an index of new coronavirus-related surveillance measures related to the coronavirus outbreak. The digital rights lead at the group behind the list says "This isn't just an issue with authoritarian governments. This is happening across the world."' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/20/04/18/0717228 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

The Tor Project Lays Off 37% of Its Staff
by Peter Reutemann 19 Apr '20

19 Apr '20

'The Tor Project's executive director Isabela Bagueros writes: Tor, like much of the world, has been caught up in the COVID-19 crisis. Like many other nonprofits and small businesses, the crisis has hit us hard, and we have had to make some difficult decisions. We had to let go of 13 great people who helped make Tor available to millions of people around the world. We will move forward with a core team of 22 people, and remain dedicated to continuing our work on Tor Browser and the Tor software ecosystem. The world won't be the same after this crisis, and the need for privacy and secure access to information will become more urgent. In these times, being online is critical and many people face ongoing obstacles to getting and sharing needed information. We are taking today's difficult steps to ensure the Tor Project continues to exist and our technology stays available. We are terribly sad to lose such valuable teammates, and we want to let all our users and supporters know that Tor will continue to provide privacy, security, and censorship circumvention services to anyone who needs them. Mashable reminds its readers that "Those wishing to make sure the specifics of their online browsing remain their own personal business can donate to Tor's non-profit organization. "Because with more and more of our lives happening online for the foreseeable future, it's a good idea to have an organization working to protect what little digital privacy we have left."' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/20/04/18/1129249 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

After 8 Years of Remote-Access Trojans Attacks, Can We Still Say Linux is Secure?
by Peter Reutemann 19 Apr '20

19 Apr '20

'Remember when BlackBerry reported Advanced Persistent Threat groups have been infiltrating critical Linux servers for at least eight years? What's the lesson to be learned? LinuxSecurity Founder Dave Wreski argues "Although it may be easy to blame the rise in attacks targeting Linux in recent years on security vulnerabilities in the operating system as a whole, this is simply not the truth. The majority of exploits on Linux systems can be attributed to misconfigured servers and poor administration." Writing for Linux Security, Slashdot reader b-dayyy gathered some additional responses: Some experts argue that it is the popularity of Linux that makes it a target. Joe McManus, Director of Security at Canonical, explains: "Linux and, particularly Ubuntu, are incredibly secure systems but, that being said, it is their popularity that makes them a target." Ian Thornton-Trump, a threat intelligence expert and the CISO at Cyjax, adds: "From an economic and mission perspective, it makes sense for a threat actor to invest in open-source skills for flexibility and the ability to target the systems where the good stuff is happening." Despite the increasing number of threats targeting Linux systems, there is still a sound argument for the inherent security of Linux, which can be attributed to the core fundamentals of Open Source. Due to the transparency of open-source code and the constant scrutiny that this code undergoes by a vibrant global community, vulnerabilities are identified and remedied quicker than flaws that exist in the opaque source code of proprietary software and operating systems. Threat actors recognize this, and are still directing the majority of their attacks at proprietary operating systems. These attacks do; however, serve as a much-needed wakeup call for the security community that more needs to be done to protect Linux servers. BlackBerry's report reveals that security solutions and defensive coverage available within Linux environments is "immature at best". Endpoint protection, detection and response products are inadequately utilized by too many Linux users, and endpoint solutions available for Linux systems are often insufficient in combating advanced exploits. Eric Cornelius, Chief Product Officer at BlackBerry, evaluates: "Security products and services that support Linux, offerings that might detect and give us insight into a threat like this, are relatively lacking compared to other operating systems, and security research about APT use of Linux malware is also relatively sparse." ' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/20/04/19/0040223 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

Apple > Ikea
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 17 Apr '20

17 Apr '20

Guess how much it costs to get the castor wheel kit for your new Apple Mac Pro <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/16/apple_mac_pro_699_dollar_wheels/>. I wonder what other furnishing-related items Apple could sell. How about a nice doily to go on top?

1 0

New Jersey Needs COBOL Programmers!
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 17 Apr '20

17 Apr '20

The Governor of the US state of New Jersey is appealing for help in maintaining their elderly COBOL-based mainframe systems <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/05/new_jersey_seeks_cobol_volunteers/> that process welfare benefit requests. The volume of requests has gone up a lot lately, and the systems are having trouble coping. By the way, I don’t understand this “ugly side of technical debt” phrase. Does technical debt have a pretty side?

3 4

Linksys Asks Users To Reset Passwords After Hackers Hijacked Home Routers Last Month
by Peter Reutemann 17 Apr '20

17 Apr '20

'Router vendor Linksys has locked user accounts on its Smart WiFi cloud service and is asking them to reset passwords after hackers have been observed hijacking accounts and changing router settings to redirect users to malware sites. From a report: Linksys' decision only impacts Smart WiFi accounts. Linksys Smart WiFi is a cloud-based account system that lets device owners connect to Linksys routers (and other equipment) over the internet to manage router settings. Smart WiFi is widely deployed across Linksys' router fleet, making it an ideal target for hackers who may want to hijack routers en-masse. According to a Bitdefender report published last month, this is exactly what's been recently happening. The cyber-security firm said it detected an organized campaign to break into D-Link and Linksys routers and change DNS settings.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/20/04/16/1727210 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

The secret behind “unkillable” Android backdoor called xHelper has been revealed
by Peter Reutemann 17 Apr '20

17 Apr '20

'In February, a researcher detailed a widely circulating Android backdoor that’s so pernicious that it survives factory resets, a trait that makes the malware impossible to remove without taking unusual measures. The analysis found that the unusual persistence was the result of rogue folders containing a trojan installer, neither of which was removed by a reset. The trojan dropper would then reinstall the backdoor in the event of a reset. Despite those insights, the researcher still didn’t know precisely how that happened. Now, a different researcher has filled in the missing pieces.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/04/solved-how-android-b… 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

Firefox To Remove Support For the FTP Protocol
by Peter Reutemann 16 Apr '20

16 Apr '20

'Mozilla has announced plans to remove support for the FTP protocol from Firefox. Going forward, users won't be able to download files via the FTP protocol and view the content of FTP links/folders inside the Firefox browser. From a report: "We're doing this for security reasons," said Michal Novotny, a software engineer at the Mozilla Corporation, the company behind the Firefox browser. "FTP is an insecure protocol and there are no reasons to prefer it over HTTPS for downloading resources," he said. "Also, a part of the FTP code is very old, unsafe and hard to maintain and we found a lot of security bugs in it in the past." Novotny says Mozilla plans to disable support for the FTP protocol with the release of Firefox 77, scheduled for release in June this year.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/03/19/169246 There's always FileZilla... 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 2

NASA Uses 3D Cardboard Glasses
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 16 Apr '20

16 Apr '20

Here’s a fun one: normally, the drivers of the Curiosity Mars rover have active-shutter 3D glasses for viewing images of the Martian terrain on their office machines. But these don’t work on the hardware that these staffers are currently using from home. So they are falling back to those cheap cardboard red-and-blue glasses that they would give out, included in the price of the ticket, at cinemas <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/15/nasa_cardboard_3d_glasses_for_curi…>.

1 0

Jailbreaking Medical Equipment
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 16 Apr '20

16 Apr '20

A security researcher has been taking a look at a piece of “CPAP” (“Continuous Positive Airway Pressure”) equipment <https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/04/firmware-jailbreak-l…>, normally used to treat sleep apnoea, just to see whether it can be adapted to function as a “BIPAP” (“Bi-Level Positive Airway Pressure”) device, i.e. a full-on ventilator. The manufacturer says no, but the researcher says yes, the device already has the essential functionality available in its firmware, just needing a patch to enable it.

1 0

A story with a happy ending
by Ian Stewart 15 Apr '20

15 Apr '20

Seven years ago, in March 2013, I discovered a bug in the BASIC programming language that is included with LibreOffice suite of applications. I found that if BASIC was requested to return a 1 to 4 x nibbles Hex string, it would return positive integers OK but it would have an error when attempting to return a negative integer. For examples: Cint(&H0) returned 0 OK Cint(&H7FFF) returned 32767 OK Cint(&HFFFF) should have returned -1, but returned an "overflow error" Cint(&H8000) should have returned -32768, but returned an "overflow error". On the 14th March 2013, I opened a case for this issue on Bugzilla and it was logged as Bug 62326 https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=62326 === The most recent comment posted on this bug was two weeks ago: Comment 39 Commit Notification 2020-03-30 06:59:05 UTC Andreas Heinisch committed a patch related to this issue. It has been pushed to "master": https://git.libreoffice.org/core/commit/ffbcbbc8dcc946d4d91cc08a937c2067be5… Cleanup for tdf#130476, tdf#62323 and tdf#62326 It will be available in 7.0.0. === Version 7.0 of LibreOffice is scheduled for release in August 2020. === So.... Good things come to those who wait! cheers, Ian.

3 2

RIP John Conway
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 15 Apr '20

15 Apr '20

One of the higher-profile victims† of Covid-19 has been mathematician John Conway, best known to most people for the invention of the cellular-automata game he called “Life”. This article <https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/04/john-conway-inventor-of-the-game-of…> has some details, including a link to a YouTube video showing a quite amazing configuration of 6 “engines” that generate an endless stream of “Corderships” that go sailing off in one direction. †Another victim I personally feel sad about is Tim Brooke-Taylor. But while I enjoyed his humour (for example in “The Goodies” and “At Last, The 1948 Show” on TV, and “I’m Sorry, I’ll Read That Again” on radio), I can’t think of anything appropriate to this group to say about him...

2 1

Samsung's S-Voice Is Shutting Down On June 1st
by Peter Reutemann 14 Apr '20

14 Apr '20

'Samsung is reportedly shutting off the servers for its S-Voice voice assistant on June 1, 2020, "at which point Samsung's original voice assistant will stop attempting to respond to your voice queries," reports Ars Technica. From the report: S-Voice arose in the early days of voice assistants, when Android OEMs were scrambling to photocopy Apple's Siri voice assistant, which launched in 2011. Samsung licensed the same underlying technology for S-Voice that Apple originally used for Siri -- Nuance Communication's voice recognition -- and set about building its Siri sibling. S-Voice was Samsung's chosen voice assistant for its smartphones until it rebooted its voice efforts with the launch of "Bixby" in 2017. Samsung's Bixby project initially grew out of an acquisition of Viv Labs, a voice-assistant company founded by members of the original Siri team (see a pattern here?). The Galaxy S8 and every device after it launched with Bixby and not S-Voice, so this shutdown should only effect older devices. SamMobile hunted down a list of applicable devices, saying "The affected models that have the S Voice icon on the app screen include the Galaxy A3, A5, A7, A8, A9, Galaxy Note FE, Galaxy Note 2, 3, 4, 5, Galaxy S3, 4, S5, S6, S6 edge in addition to the Galaxy Note Pro 12.2, Galaxy W, Galaxy Tab 4, Galaxy Tab 4 8.0/10.1, Galaxy Tab S8.4 and S10.5. ' -- source: https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/20/04/13/2336220 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

How Steak-umm Became The Tweeting Voice Of Reason In A Pandemic
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 14 Apr '20

14 Apr '20

No, I had never heard of this US-based product before, either. But whoever is in charge of its Twitter account has decided to use their power for good, not for evil <https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200410/17213944276/how-steak-umm-became…>. Consider comments like this: it can be difficult to know what to believe in a time when institutional trust is diminished and the gatekeepers of information have been dismantled, but it's more crucial now than ever before to follow a range of credentialed sources for both breaking news and data collection or this: you can maintain independent, critical thinking toward institutions without dipping into fringe conspiracies that get jumpstarted by individual anecdotes being virally spread as data. it's not easy, but it's necessary to keep any semblance of responsible online information flow or this: we're a frozen meat brand posting ads inevitably made to misdirect people and generate sales, so this is peak irony, but hey we live in a society so please make informed decisions to the best of your ability and don't let anecdotes dictate your worldview ok and this: people think it's bizarre, ironic, and funny when a frozen meat company points out the importance of critical thinking, but chances are the same message would never "go viral" if it was from a person. our society values entertainment over truth and that's a huge problem

1 0

Not actually Linux distro review deux: GhostBSD
by Peter Reutemann 14 Apr '20

14 Apr '20

'When I began work on the FreeBSD 12.1-RELEASE review last week, it didn't take long to figure out that the desktop portion wasn't going very smoothly. I think it's important for BSD-curious users to know of easier, gentler alternatives, so I did a little looking around and settled on GhostBSD for a follow-up review. GhostBSD is based on TrueOS, which itself derives from FreeBSD Stable. It was originally a Canadian distro, but—like most successful distributions—it has transcended its country of origin and can now be considered worldwide. Significant GhostBSD development takes place now in Canada, Italy, Germany, and the United States. The history of desktop-oriented BSD distros is a turbulent one. For several years, Kris Moore's PC-BSD was the go-to for "I want BSD, but I also want a ready-to-go desktop." Eventually, ixSystems—home of the FreeNAS storage distro, and the company Moore is vice president of engineering for—came to rely heavily on the server-side features developed into PC-BSD. The need at ixSystems for the foundation of PC-BSD without the associated desktop led to a rename and a fork. PC-BSD's underpinnings became TrueOS, and the desktop-friendly distribution—now based on TrueOS—became Project Trident. This state of affairs didn't last long. A year later, Project Trident declared unhappiness with TrueOS and BSD in general—mostly due to hardware support, or lack thereof. In January 2020, Trident rebased itself on Void Linux, which its developers found to be "the most BSD-like" of the potential Linux upstream distros they examined. Project Trident's departure for more Linux-y waters left several potential contenders for a desktop-focused BSD distribution. These include FuryBSD, MidnightBSD, DesktopBSD, and GhostBSD itself. I've tested PC-BSD fairly extensively in the past but have no history with any of the current desktop BSD choices. I chose GhostBSD for a first look, solely due to its prominence in Google search results for "desktop BSD distro."' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/04/not-actually-linux-distro-review-de… 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 1

Linux on Laptops: ASUS Zephyrus G14 with Ryzen 9 4900HS
by Peter Reutemann 14 Apr '20

14 Apr '20

'The Zephyrus G14 is a dual-GPU gaming laptop, and Linux tends not to fare well with that setup. But it's the only Ryzen 4000 equipped laptop I have available—so it was obviously going to get Linux on it, whether it liked it or not. Since brand-new hardware generally calls for brand-new distro versions, I grabbed a fresh copy of the Ubuntu Focal Fossa beta and gave it a whirl. I have the sad duty of reporting that the results were mediocre at best.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/04/linux-on-laptops-asus-zephyrus-g14-… >From my recent experience of setting up a GPU machine, the Nouveau driver was unusable to get a working desktop. I ended up having to use the Ubuntu server edition instead with a text-based setup, which required me to have ethernet plugged in for internet. The strangest thing on this machine is docker: after rebooting the machine, I have to restart docker before I can do anything with it... 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

Coronavirus: Raspberry Pi-powered ventilator to be tested in Colombia
by Peter Reutemann 14 Apr '20

14 Apr '20

'A team in Colombia is to test a ventilator made with a Raspberry Pi computer and easy-to-source parts. The design and computer code were posted online in March by a man in California, who had no prior experience at creating medical equipment. Marco Mascorro, a robotics engineer, said he built the ventilator because knew the machines were in high demand to treat Covid-19. His post prompted a flood of feedback from healthcare workers. He has used the advice to make improvements. "I am a true believer that technology can solve a lot of the problems we have right now specifically in this pandemic," he told the BBC. The Colombian team said the design was important for their South American country because parts for traditional models could be hard to obtain. By contrast, Mr Mascorro's design uses only easy-to-find parts - for example, the valves it employs can commonly be found at car and plumbing supply stores. The machine is set to be put through a fast-tracked round of tests at two institutions in Bogota - the University Hospital of the Pontifical Xavierian University and Los Andes University.' -- source: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52251286 -- github: https://github.com/Mascobot/pandemic-ventilator-2.0 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

Not-actually Linux distro review: FreeBSD 12.1-RELEASE
by Peter Reutemann 10 Apr '20

10 Apr '20

'This month's Linux distro review isn't of a Linux distribution at all—instead, we're taking a look at FreeBSD, the original gangster of free Unix-like operating systems. The first FreeBSD release was in 1993, but the operating system's roots go further back—considerably further back. FreeBSD started out in 1992 as a patch-release of Bill and Lynne Jolitz's 386BSD—but 386BSD itself came from the original Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). BSD itself goes back to 1977—for reference, Linus Torvalds was only seven years old then. Before we get started, I'd like to acknowledge something up front—our distro reviews include the desktop experience, and that is very much not FreeBSD's strength. FreeBSD is far, far better suited to running as a headless server than as a desktop! We're going to get a full desktop running on it anyway, because according to Lee Hutchinson, I hate myself—and also because we can't imagine readers wouldn't care about it. FreeBSD does not provide a good desktop experience, to say the least. But if you're hankering for a BSD-based desktop, don't worry—we're already planning a followup review of GhostBSD, a desktop-focused BSD distribution.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/04/not-actually-linux-distro-review-fr… 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 1

Signal Threatens To Dump US Market If EARN IT Act Passes
by Peter Reutemann 10 Apr '20

10 Apr '20

'Signal is warning that an anti-encryption bill circulating in Congress could force the private messaging app to pull out of the U.S. market. PC Magazine reports: Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the free app, which offers end-to-end encryption, has seen a surge in traffic. But on Wednesday, the nonprofit behind the app published a blog post, raising the alarm around the EARN IT Act. "At a time when more people than ever are benefiting from these (encryption) protections, the EARN IT bill proposed by the Senate Judiciary Committee threatens to put them at risk," Signal developer Joshua Lund wrote in the post. Although the goal of the legislation, which has bipartisan support, is to stamp out online child exploitation, it does so by letting the U..S government regulate how internet companies should combat the problem -- even if it means undermining the end-to-end encryption protecting your messages from snoops. If the companies fail to do so, they risk losing legal immunity under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which can shield them from lawsuits concerning objectionable or illegal content posted on their websites or apps. "Some large tech behemoths could hypothetically shoulder the enormous financial burden of handling hundreds of new lawsuits if they suddenly became responsible for the random things their users say, but it would not be possible for a small nonprofit like Signal to continue to operate within the United States," Lund wrote in the blog post.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/20/04/09/2014207 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

Meet dark_nexus, quite possibly the most potent IoT botnet ever
by Peter Reutemann 10 Apr '20

10 Apr '20

'A newly discovered botnet that preys on home routers, video recorders, and other network-connected devices is one of the most advanced Internet-of-things platforms ever seen, researchers said on Wednesday. Its list of advanced features includes the ability to disguise malicious traffic as benign, maintain persistence, and infect devices that run on at least 12 different CPUs. Researchers from antivirus provider Bitdefender described the so-called dark_nexus as a “new IoT botnet packing new features and capabilities that put to shame most IoT botnets and malware that we’ve seen.” In the three months that Bitdefender has tracked it, dark_nexus has undergone 30 version updates, as its developer has steadily added more features and capabilities.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/04/meet-dark_nexus-quit… 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

Chinese Cybercriminals Target High-Value Linux Servers With Weak Defenses: BlackBerry
by Peter Reutemann 10 Apr '20

10 Apr '20

'Linux malware is real and Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) groups have been infiltrating critical servers with these tools for at least eight years, according to a new report from BlackBerry. From a report: In "Decade of the RATs: Cross-Platform APT Espionage Attacks Targeting Linux, Windows and Android," security researchers found that these groups have attacked companies around the world and across all industries with goals ranging from simple cybercrime to full-blown economic espionage. The RATs report describes how five APT groups are working with the Chinese government and the remote access trojans (RATs) the cybercriminals are using to get and maintain access to Linux servers. According to the report, the groups appeared to be using WINNTI-style tooling to take aim at Linux servers and remain relatively undetected for almost a decade. These groups are targeting Red Hat Enterprise, CentOS, and Ubuntu Linux environments for espionage and intellectual property theft. The APT groups examined include the original WINNTI GROUP, PASSCV, BRONZE UNION, CASPER (LEAD), and a newly identified group BlackBerry researchers are tracking as WLNXSPLINTER. The BlackBerry researchers think all five groups are working together, given the distinct similarities in their preferred tools, tactics, and procedures.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/20/04/09/1538218 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

Google Launches Braille Keyboard for Android Devices
by Peter Reutemann 10 Apr '20

10 Apr '20

'Google today announced the launch of a virtual braille keyboard for Android that's designed to enable those with low vision or blindness to type on their phones without additional hardware. From a report: The tech giant says it collaborated with braille developers and users to create it, and to ensure it can be used anywhere a user would normally type -- including social media, text messaging, and email apps. According to the World Health Organization, at least 2.2 billion people globally have a vision impairment or blindness. To address their needs, Google previously developed and released BrailleBack, an accessibility service for Android that helps users make use of braille devices, but BrailleBack didn't offer on-screen typing.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/04/09/1831238 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

Windows 10 Is Getting Linux Files Integration In File Explorer
by Peter Reutemann 09 Apr '20

09 Apr '20

'Microsoft is planning to fully integrate Linux file access into the built-in File Explorer. The Verge reports: A new Linux icon will be available in the left-hand navigation pane in File Explorer, providing access to the root file system for any distros that are installed in Windows 10. The icon that will appear in File Explorer is the famous Tux, the penguin mascot for the Linux kernel. Microsoft is testing the Linux File Explorer integration in a new build of Windows 10 that's available for testers today. Previously, Windows 10 users would have to manually navigate to a UNC path to get access to Linux files from the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). If you have WSL enabled, then the Tux will appear in File Explorer, and Microsoft is now seeking feedback on the integration before it's finalized as part of a future Windows 10 update. The software maker will ship this update to all Windows 10 users later this year. ' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/20/04/08/2146226 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

corp.com Saved From Falling Into The Wrong Hands
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 09 Apr '20

09 Apr '20

Seems that early versions of Windows Active Directory would offer a default path name of “corp” during setup. Back in the days before the Internet became a part of everyday life, many admins accepted this without thinking too much about it. But once you start connecting servers to the Internet, they are liable to do DNS lookups on names like this, and accidentally connecting to something like “corp.com”. So to avoid such a name from coming under the control of less-than-savoury elements, Microsoft has bought it over <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/08/microsoft_active_directory/>. One of the reader comments links to this old Microsoft blog post <https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20061013-05/?p=29393>, which explains that example/default names like “Contoso” and “Fabrikam” used in Microsoft’s documentation and products were actually created by their legal department, after a careful vetting process to ensure that they are indeed entirely fictitious.

1 0

Cryptominer Linux Malware Infecting Docker Containers
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 09 Apr '20

09 Apr '20

Seems some people are not properly securing their Docker setups <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/08/docker_malware_attacks/>, allowing the “Kinsing” malware to gain entrance and hijack your CPU time to do cryptocurrency mining.

1 0

Longtime Mozilla Leader Mitchell Baker is Now CEO
by Peter Reutemann 09 Apr '20

09 Apr '20

'On Wednesday, Mozilla chair and longtime leader Mitchell Baker was named permanent CEO of the company that makes the Firefox web browser. >From a report: Mitchell became interim CEO of Mozilla in December 2019, after former CEO Chris Beard resigned. The company conducted an external candidate search over the last eight months, and concluded the Mitchell is the right leader for Mozilla at this time, according to a company blog post published Wednesday. "Increasingly, numbers of people recognize that the internet needs attention," Baker said in another Mozilla blog post Wednesday. "Mozilla has a special, if not unique role to play here. It's time to tune our existing assets to meet the challenge. It's time to make use of Mozilla's ingenuity and unbelievable technical depth and understanding of the "web" platform to make new products and experiences. It's time to gather with others who want these things and work together to make them real."' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/04/08/1720218 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 1

Chrome 81 Arrives With Web NFC Origin Trial, AR Features, and Mixed Images Autoupgraded To HTTPS
by Peter Reutemann 09 Apr '20

09 Apr '20

'Google today launched Chrome 81 for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and iOS. Chrome 81 includes an Origin Trial of Web NFC for mobile, early Augmented Reality support, mixed images autoupgraded to HTTPS, TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.1 deprecated, and more developer features. With over 1 billion users, Chrome is both a browser and a major platform that web developers must consider. In fact, with Chrome's regular additions and changes, developers have to stay on top of everything available -- as well as what has been deprecated or removed. Among other things, Chrome 81 removes the "discard" element and FTP support.' -- source: https://slashdot.org/story/20/04/08/1641238 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

Tails, the Security-Focused OS, Adds Support For Secure Boot
by Peter Reutemann 09 Apr '20

09 Apr '20

'Tail OS, an operating system optimized for privacy and anonymity, has released version 4.5 this week, the first version that supports a crucial security feature named UEFI Secure Boot. From a report: Secure Boot works by using cryptographic signatures to verify that firmware files loaded during a computer's boot-up process are authentic and have not been tampered. If any of the firmware checks fail, Secure Boot has the authority to stop the boot process, preventing the operating system from launching. The feature has been available as part of the UEFI specification for almost two decades but is rarely used. The reason is because not all firmware vendors cryptographically sign their files, leaving the door open to verification errors that -- when Secure Boot is enabled -- block many operation systems from launching.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/20/04/08/1712239 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

Google makes seamless update support mandatory in Android 11
by Peter Reutemann 09 Apr '20

09 Apr '20

'Google is putting new rules in place for Android 11: it's going to make support for Android's "seamless update" feature mandatory for devices launching with the new OS. The news comes to us via an Android source code commit first spotted by XDA Developers, which reads, "Require Virtual A/B on R launches." In English, this means the seamless update system, which requires two partitions (labeled "A" and "B"), will be required on Android R, aka Android 11. Android's seamless update system was introduced in Android 7.0 Nougat (it was actually borrowed from Chrome OS) as a way to reduce the downtime caused by OS updates and to offer a recovery mechanism in case an update applies incorrectly. Applying an update to an operating system usually means taking the OS offline for an extended period of downtime. On Android, before seamless updates, the phone would boot into recovery and could be stuck on the "Installing System Update" screen for as much as 25 minutes. That's a lot of downtime, and during this time you can't run any apps, see any text messages, or get any phone calls. The downtime happens because updating the system files requires taking the system partition offline, but the seamless update system fixes this by just having a second copy of the system partition.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/04/google-makes-seamless-update-suppor… 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

Scratch Makes It To TIOBE Top 20
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 08 Apr '20

08 Apr '20

Scratch, the graphically-based language designed to teach kids how to program, has entered TIOBE’s latest Top 20 list <https://devclass.com/2020/04/06/kids-programming-language-scratch-nails-top…>. Stats language R has also made some gains, getting into the top 10 for the first time.

1 0

Firefox 75 Arrives With Revamped Address Bar; Mozilla To Stick With 2020 Schedule
by Peter Reutemann 08 Apr '20

08 Apr '20

'Mozilla today launched Firefox 75 for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Firefox 75 includes a revamped address bar with significant search improvements, a few performance tweaks, and a handful of developer features. You can download Firefox 75 for desktop now from Firefox.com, and all existing users should be able to upgrade to it automatically. According to Mozilla, Firefox has about 250 million active users, making it a major platform for web developers to consider. When the coronavirus crisis took hold, millions found themselves spending more time in their browsers as they learn and work from home. But the crisis is also impacting software developers. Google was forced to pause its Chrome releases, which typically arrive every six weeks. Ultimately, Chrome 81 was delayed, Chrome 82 is being skipped altogether, and Chrome 83 has been moved up a few weeks. Microsoft has followed suit with Edge's release schedule, consistent with Google's open source Chromium project, which both Chrome and Edge are based on. Mozilla wants to make clear it is not in the same boat. The company took an indirect jab at Google and Microsoft today, saying: "We've built empathy into our systems for handling difficult or unexpected circumstances. These strengths are what allow us to continue to make progress where some of our competitors have had to slow down or stop work."' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/04/07/162246 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 Announces IPE, a New Code Integrity Feature for Linux
by Peter Reutemann 08 Apr '20

08 Apr '20

'Microsoft has revealed details about a new project it has been working on for Linux kernel. From a report: Named Integrity Policy Enforcement -- or IPE -- the project is a Linux security module (LSM). LSMs are optional add-ons for the Linux kernel that enable additional security features. According to a documentation page published on Monday, IPE is Microsoft's attempt to solve the code integrity problem for Linux -- an operating system the company broadly uses in its Azure cloud service. On Linux systems where IPE is enabled, system administrators can create a list of binaries that are allowed to execute and then add the verification attributes the kernel needs to check for each binary before allowing it to run. If binaries have been altered by an attacker, IPE can block the execution of the malicious code.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/20/04/07/1615232 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

Google Backs Apple's SMS OTP Standard Proposal
by Peter Reutemann 08 Apr '20

08 Apr '20

'Google is now backing a standard proposed by Apple engineers in January to create a default format for one-time passcodes (OTP) sent via SMS to users during the two-factor authentication (2FA) process. >From a report: The standard, proposed by Apple engineers working on the Safari WebKit project, has now reached the status of official Web Platform Incubator Community Group (WICG) specification draft. "We've moved 'Origin-bound one-time codes delivered via SMS' to @wicg_, where we're working on a shared spec with our collaborators at Google. Please take a look! Updated explainer, and specification," wrote Apple's Ricky Mondello. The proposal aims to fix some issues with the current state of SMS 2FA/OTP codes, all of which have different formats, unique per the websites sending the codes.' -- source: https://apple.slashdot.org/story/20/04/07/199245 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

Edge Overtakes Firefox To Become the Second-Most Popular Browser
by Peter Reutemann 06 Apr '20

06 Apr '20

'It was probably just a matter of time, but the thing so many people, including everyone at Microsoft, expected finally happened: Microsoft Edge surpassed Mozilla Firefox to become the world's second most-used desktop browser. Data provided by market analysis firm NetMarketShare reveals that the whole thing happened in March, when the adoption of the Chromium-powered Microsoft Edge improved to a level that allowed it to overtake Mozilla's own browser. So right now, Microsoft Edge is the second most-used desktop browser on the planet with a share of 7.59%, while Mozilla Firefox is now third with 7.19%. As for who's leading the pack, Google Chrome continues to be number one with a share of 68.50%' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/04/05/1727217 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/

3 2

Eclipse Foundation Unveils Open Source Alternative to Microsoft's 'Visual Studio Code' IDE
by Peter Reutemann 05 Apr '20

05 Apr '20

'"The Eclipse Foundation just released version 1.0 of an open-source alternative to Visual Studio Code called Eclipse Theia," reports SD Times: Theia is an extensible platform that allows developers to create multi-language cloud and desktop IDEs, allowing them to create entirely new developer experiences. According to the Eclipse Foundation, the differences between Theia and Visual Studio Code are that Theia has a more modular architecture, Theia was designed from the ground to run on desktop and cloud, and Theia was developed under community-driven and vendor-neutral governance of the Eclipse Foundation. The Theia project was started by Ericsson and TypeFox in 2016, and since then it has become an integral part of cloud solutions globally. The project approached the Eclipse Foundation about becoming a potential host in 2019. Early contributors to the project include ARM, Arduino, EclipseSource, Ericsson, Google Cloud, IBM, Red Hat, SAP, and TypeFox. "We are thrilled to see Eclipse Theia deliver on its promise of providing a production-ready, vendor-neutral, and open source framework for creating custom and white-labeled developer products," announced Mike Milinkovich, the Eclipse Foundation's executive director. "Visual Studio Code is one of the world's most popular development environments. Not only does Theia allow developers to install and reuse VS Code extensions, it provides an extensible and adaptable platform that can be tailored to specific use cases, which is a huge benefit for any organization that wants to deliver a modern and professional development experience. Congratulations to all the Theia committers and contributors on achieving this milestone." InfoWorld points out that "thus far Theia is intended to be fitted into third-party products. An end-user version is on the roadmap for release later this year." But programming columnist Mike Melanson notes that "Chances are, you've already run into Theia without even realizing it, as it already serves as the basis for Red Hat's CodeReady Workspaces, the Eclipse Foundation's own Eclipse Che, and Google Cloud Shell."' -- source: https://developers.slashdot.org/story/20/04/04/1819251 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

What's New in Linux 5.6? WireGuard VPN and USB4
by Peter Reutemann 05 Apr '20

05 Apr '20

'Linux 5.6 "has a bit more changes than I'd like," Linus Torvalds posted on the kernel mailing list, "but they are mostly from davem's networking fixes pulls, and David feels comfy with them. And I looked over the diff, and none of it looks scary..." TechRadar reports that the new changes include support for USB4 and GeForce RTX 2000 series graphics cards with the Nouveau driver: Yes, Turing GPU support has arrived with the open source Nouveau driver, along with the proprietary firmware images, as Phoronix.com reports. However, don't get too excited, as re-clocking doesn't work yet (getting the GPU to operate at stock clocks), and other important pieces of the puzzle are missing (like no Vulkan support with Nouveau). For the unfamiliar, Nouveau is an alternative to Nvidia's proprietary drivers on Linux, and although it remains in a relatively rough state in comparison, it's still good to see things progressing for Linux gamers with one of Nvidia's latest cards in their PC. Linux 5.6 also introduces fresh elements on the AMD front, with better reset support for Navi and Renoir graphics cards (which helps the GPU recover if it hits a problem)... Another notable move is the introduction of WireGuard support, a newcomer VPN protocol which makes a potentially nifty alternative to OpenVPN. Linux 5.6 also supports the Amazon Echo speaker, and naturally comes with a raft of other minor improvements... Linus's post also notes that for the next release's timing they'll "play it by ear... It's not like the merge window is more important than your health, or the health of people around you." But he says he hasn't seen signs that the pandemic could affect its development (other than the possibility of distraction by the news). "I suspect a lot of us work from home even normally, and my daughter laughed at me and called me a 'social distancing champ' the other day..."' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/20/04/04/2128207 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

U.S. Government: Update Chrome 80 Now, Multiple Security Concerns Confirmed
by Peter Reutemann 05 Apr '20

05 Apr '20

'Part of America's Department of Homeland Security, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) "has advised users to update Google Chrome as new high-rated security vulnerabilities have been found," reports Forbes: In an April 1 posting, CISA confirmed that Google Chrome version 80.0.3987.162 "addresses vulnerabilities that an attacker could exploit to take control of an affected system," be that Windows, Mac or Linux. It went on to state that it "encourages" users and administrators to apply the update. It's not just CISA that is warning about the need to update Google Chrome. The Center for Internet Security (CIS) is a non-profit entity that works to safeguard both private and public organizations against cyber threats. In a multi-state information sharing and analysis center (MS-ISAC) advisory, it has also warned of multiple vulnerabilities in Google Chrome. The most severe of these could allow an attacker to achieve arbitrary code execution within the context of the browser... All it would take for an attacker to exploit the vulnerabilities is to get the user to visit, by way of a phishing attack or even redirection from a compromised site, a maliciously crafted web page. Beside three high-rated vulnerabilities, Forbes reports that "a further five security vulnerabilities were discovered by the Google internal security team using a combination of internal audits and fuzzing."' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/20/04/04/2020211 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

Cheap 3D Printer Review
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 05 Apr '20

05 Apr '20

Here’s a review <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3SMUpNH_6I> of a sub-USD100 3D printer from China. Has some good discussion of quality issues in 3D printing generally, and how this relates to the printer versus the filament you use. And I learned about the “3DBenchy” benchmark reference model. Judging from the gear they have access to, LTT seems to have quite a high budget for a YouTube channel. Also some useful notes from knowledgeable users among the comments ... if you can be bothered to dig for them ...

1 0

Yet Another Processor Architecture
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 05 Apr '20

05 Apr '20

Here’s a report <https://www.nextplatform.com/2020/04/02/tachyum-starts-from-scratch-to-etch…> on a startup creating another new, proprietary processor architecture. Proprietary or not, the standard thing to do to get software running on things like this seems to be to port the GNU toolchain. Kernel? OS? No mention of that at this stage. I don’t claim to understand all the details, but it seems to be taking ideas from lots of sources, including Intel’s Itanium (which failed to become a successor to x86). One thing I was surprised to learn is that, as the wires connecting the transistors on a chip get thinner, this also makes them slower. So you don’t get all the gain you were expecting from making them shorter and bringing things closer together. One thing is clear: the Great Wheel Of Reincarnation <https://www.deviantart.com/default-cube/art/Computer-Graphics-And-The-Wheel…> (which in this case would apply to computing generally, not just graphics) has yet to stop spinning ...

1 0

Vint Cerf 'No Longer Contagious' With Covid-19
by Peter Reutemann 05 Apr '20

05 Apr '20

'Good news — VA Public Health has certified my wife and me as no longer contagious with COVID19," tweeted 76-year-old Vint Cerf, one of the creators of the modern internet. He added one word. "Recovering!" It seemed especially appropriate that Cerf shared his news online — and that it drew positive responses from grateful people around the world, including several who use the internet in their daily lives. Cerf's tweet immediately drew positive responses from the Internet Society, as well as the chief operating officer of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, YouTube's director of public policy, and a senior director of communications and public affairs at Google. There were also congratulatory posts from a Georgetown professor of technology and law, from Associated Press reporter Frank Bajak, and the executive director of the Global Privacy and Security by Design Centre. Cerf followed up his news with a re-tweet of Google's "Community Mobility Reports" charting our aggregate movement trends over time, and a tweet of a University of Pittsburgh press release about progress on a COVID-19 vaccine candidate. Earlier in the week Cerf also re-tweeted a humorous compilation of clips from the TV show M*A*S*H that illustrated safe practices while social distancing.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/04/04/0615234 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

Will Google Allow An Independent Peek At Its Crown Jewels?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 04 Apr '20

04 Apr '20

An advertising company called Foundem is suing Google <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/03/google_foundem_high_court_seo_expe…> over a drastic demotion in its search rankings and consequent damage to its business, claiming this was an anticompetitive act. Google denies this, and as part of its defence has filed documents with the court giving confidential details of how its search-ranking algorithms work. But of course the lawyers and judge don’t have the background to understand these documents. So the plaintiff wants an independent SEO expert to be able to go over them and make sense of them to the lawyers. Google is vehemently opposed to this. So now the judge has given the company a stark choice: either allow the expert access to those documents, or withdraw them from the evidence (and thereby, by Google’s own admission as to the “vital” nature of these documents for its defence, likely lose the case). Which way do you think Google will decide?

1 0

Phone-tracking of self-isolationists
by tom butz 04 Apr '20

04 Apr '20

When we had to track teenagers' nightclubbing whereabouts (they're adults now), we did the following: 1) made sure we'd written down their mobile phone-numbers (obviously) 2) remembered their names/addresses (obviously) 3) told them to leave their mobiles switched ON all the time (they'd have done that anyway to keep up with Social Media) 4) Sent them a text every hour on the hour and they'd have to reply 'OK'. We'd reimburse them the money for the texts (nice little earner if you're on a plan...). Side-effect: it boosted their self-esteem (wow, getting messages all the time - she must be popular). Was that asking too much? Fast forward to our current lockdown and the way to handle self-quarantine: 1) as above 2) as above 3) as above 4) get info from cellphone-towers to check which one they're logged in. If, for example, someone is in self-quarantine at an Auckland campground and all of a sudden's logged into the Gisborne cell-tower, that would be an indication that they're elsewhere - or that the phone had been stolen. Note that in the case of traffic accidents police already get the info from cell-towers, so they can determine if the driver - according to their phone - was in the area, logged on and texting. Piece of cake for them, according to TVNZ. BTW, there is no need for name-matching: the rental-car companies do that anyway, so the user's name could stay anonymous - until police very kindly ask/beg cap in hand for it to be released. Tom Butz.

1 0

Twitter Discloses Firefox Bug That Cached Private Files Sent or Received via DMs
by Peter Reutemann 03 Apr '20

03 Apr '20

'Social networking giant Twitter today disclosed a bug on its platform that impacted users who accessed their platform using Firefox browsers. >From a report: According to Twitter, its platform stored private files inside the Firefox browser's cache -- a folder where websites store information and files temporarily. Twitter said that once users left their platform or logged off, the files would remain in the browser cache, allowing anyone to retrieve it. The company is now warning users who share workstations or used a public computer that some of their private files may still be present in the Firefox cache. Malware present on a system could also scrape and steal this data, if ever configured to do so.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/04/02/2048216 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

The Internet is Now Rife With Places Where You Can Organize Zoom-bombing Raids
by Peter Reutemann 03 Apr '20

03 Apr '20

'The internet is rife with online communities where users can go and share Zoom conference codes and request that pranksters connect and hurl insults, play pornographic material, or make death threats against other participants -- in a practice called Zoom-bombing or a Zoom raid. From a report: ZDNet began tracking the tactic since mid-March when the term was first coined following a TechCrunch article. Ever since then, Zoom-bombing incidents have increased, as articles in major news outlets like the New York Times and the BBC have made the practice a favorite pastime for all the teenagers stuck in their homes during the current coronavirus (COVID-19) quarantines. From a niche prank that started on a derelict Discord channel, Zoom-bombing has now spread to enormous proportions -- being so rampant these days that the FBI sent a nationwide alert last week, urging companies, schools, and universities to take steps to secure their Zoom channels. But as Zoom-bombing became more popular, more pranksters wanted to join on the fun, and more users wanted their friends' Zoom meetings disrupted. And as the old saying goes; where there's a demand, there's always a supply. Over the course of the past week, the number of places on the public internet where you can request a zoom raid from a gang of bored teenagers has exploded.' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/20/04/02/1937229 How to secure Zoom: https://www.netsafe.org.nz/get-into-zoom/ 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

National Tells PM To Stop Using Zoom At Cabinet Meetings
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 02 Apr '20

02 Apr '20

Security concerns are being raised about the Zoom videoconferencing service, which Jacinda Ardern and her cabinet have been using in their online meetings <https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12321784>.

2 1

Linux Mint 20 is 64-bit Only, Based on Ubuntu 20.04, and Named 'Ulyana'
by Peter Reutemann 01 Apr '20

01 Apr '20

'Today, we learn some new details about the upcoming Linux Mint 20. While most of the newly revealed information is positive, there is one thing that is sure to upset many Linux Mint users. First things first, Linux Mint 20 will be based on the upcoming Ubuntu 20.04. This shouldn't come as a surprise, as Mint only uses Long Term Support versions of Ubuntu, and 20.04 will be an LTS. We also now know the name of Linux Mint 20. The Mint team always uses female names, and this time they chose "Ulyana." This is apparently a Russian name meaning "youthful." So far, all of the news is positive, so what exactly will upset some users? The Linux Mint developers are finally dropping 32-bit support and will only produce 64-bit ISOs.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/20/03/31/1842216 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 2

OpenWRT code-execution bug puts millions of devices at risk
by Peter Reutemann 01 Apr '20

01 Apr '20

'For almost three years, OpenWRT—the open source operating system that powers home routers and other types of embedded systems—has been vulnerable to remote code-execution attacks because updates were delivered over an unencrypted channel and digital signature verifications are easy to bypass, a researcher said. OpenWRT has a loyal base of users who use the freely available package as an alternative to the firmware that comes installed on their devices. Besides routers, OpenWRT runs on smartphones, pocket computers and even laptops and desktop PCs. Users generally find OpenWRT to be a more secure choice because it offers advanced functions and its source code is easy to audit. Security researcher Guido Vranken, however, recently found that updates and installation files were delivered over unencrypted HTTPs connections, which are open to attacks that allow adversaries to completely replace legitimate updates with malicious ones. The researcher also found that it was trivial for attackers with moderate experience to bypass digital-signature checks that verify a downloaded update as the legitimate one offered by OpenWTR maintainers. The combination of those two lapses makes it possible to send a malicious update that vulnerable devices will automatically install.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/03/openwrt-is-vulnerabl… 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

How The ESA Has Kept The Mars Express Probe Doing Useful Science For 16 Years
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 01 Apr '20

01 Apr '20

Originally designed for a mission lasting one Martian year (about two Earth years), MEX <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/03/31/mars_express/> continues to operate even today, and looks likely to manage to stay in action for a few more years. Working around a wiring error that meant it only had 70% of the designed operating power, then dealing with unreliabilities cropping up in the Solid-State Mass Memory system, figuring out how to prolong the life of the maneouvring reaction wheels, actually having to write and upload new software written in Ada-83, where the original contractor was helpful, rather than obstructive for a change: While support had officially ended, ESA did set up a small contract with Airbus (who had acquired the original spacecraft manufacturer) in a role reversal that saw Airbus review the MEX team's work rather than the other way around. As it transpired, Airbus turned out to be hugely helpful, blowing dust off some testing tools, making suggestions and, effectively, "putting the band back together" as those who originally designed and built MEX (and had not yet shuffled off into retirement) were hauled back to offer assistance. All in all, the team operating MEX has done some amazing work so far. Bear in mind that launching probes into space is still a dicey business, prone to embarrassing failures. This is why they have to be over-engineered, then backed up with alternate recovery plans on top of alternate recovery plans.

1 0

Zoom Meetings Aren't End-to-End Encrypted, Despite Misleading Marketing
by Peter Reutemann 01 Apr '20

01 Apr '20

'Zoom, the video conferencing service whose use has spiked amid the Covid-19 pandemic, claims to implement end-to-end encryption, widely understood as the most private form of internet communication, protecting conversations from all outside parties. In fact, Zoom is using its own definition of the term, one that lets Zoom itself access unencrypted video and audio from meetings. With millions of people around the world working from home in order to slow the spread of the coronavirus, business is booming for Zoom, bringing more attention on the company and its privacy practices, including a policy, later updated, that seemed to give the company permission to mine messages and files shared during meetings for the purpose of ad targeting. Still, Zoom offers reliability, ease of use, and at least one very important security assurance: As long as you make sure everyone in a Zoom meeting connects using "computer audio" instead of calling in on a phone, the meeting is secured with end-to-end encryption, at least according to Zoom's website, its security white paper, and the user interface within the app. But despite this misleading marketing, the service actually does not support end-to-end encryption for video and audio content, at least as the term is commonly understood. Instead it offers what is usually called transport encryption.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/20/03/31/1526250 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

Zoom is Leaking Peoples' Email Addresses and Photos To Strangers
by Peter Reutemann 01 Apr '20

01 Apr '20

'Popular video-conferencing Zoom is leaking personal information of at least thousands of users, including their email address and photo, and giving strangers the ability to attempt to start a video call with them through Zoom. From a report: The issue lies in Zoom's "Company Directory" setting, which automatically adds other people to a user's lists of contacts if they signed up with an email address that shares the same domain. This can make it easier to find a specific colleague to call when the domain belongs to an individual company. But multiple Zoom users say they signed up with personal email addresses, and Zoom pooled them together with thousands of other people as if they all worked for the same company, exposing their personal information to one another.' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/20/03/31/201237 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

HPE, Intel and Linux Foundation Team Up For Open Source Software for 5G Core
by Peter Reutemann 01 Apr '20

01 Apr '20

'HPE announced on Tuesday it's working with Intel and the Linux Foundation on a new open source software project to help automate the roll out of 5G across multiple sites. From a report: The new partnership, which will be under the Linux Foundation umbrella, is called the Open Distributed Infrastructure Management Framework. The partnership represents HPE's move into the 5G core network space as it branches out from its enterprise roots. Other partners for the open source project include AMI, Apstra, IBM's Red Hat, Tech Mahindra and World Wide Technology. HPE will also introduce an enterprise offering, the HPE Open Distributed Infrastructure Management Resource Aggregator.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/03/31/1947203 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

The Keyring Concept in Ubuntu: What is It and How to Use it?
by Peter Reutemann 31 Mar '20

31 Mar '20

'f you use automatic login in Ubuntu or other Linux distributions, you might have come across a pop-up message of this sort: Enter password to unlock your login keyring The login keyring did not get unlocked when you logged into your computer. It keeps on popping up several times before disappearing if you keep on clicking cancel. You may wonder why do you keep seeing this keyring message all the time? Let me tell you something. It’s not an error. It’s a security feature. Surprised? Let me explain the keyring concept in Linux.' -- source: https://itsfoss.com/ubuntu-keyring/ 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 1

Internet Pioneer Vint Cerf Tests Positive For Covid-19
by Peter Reutemann 31 Mar '20

31 Mar '20

'Tech pioneer Vint Cerf, one of the co-creators of the modern internet, has tested positive for covid-19, according to a tweet Cerf sent out Monday morning. The 76-year-old tweeted out a clip from HBO's Last Week Tonight with John Oliver about the U.S. response to the global pandemic. "I tested positive for COVID-19 and am recovering," Cerf tweeted. "Listen to what John Oliver has to say about our national response so far." Cerf helped create the modern internet in the 1970s while working at UCLA with other pioneers like Bob Kahn and Leonard Kleinrock. Cerf worked on packet switching for the APRANET under Kleinrock and TCP/IP protocols with ARPA (now DARPA), the plumbing that makes the internet function. DARPA tweeted its support of Cerf, telling him to get well soon.' -- source: https://science.slashdot.org/story/20/03/30/214250 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/

3 2

WireGuard VPN makes it to 1.0.0—and into the next Linux kernel
by Peter Reutemann 31 Mar '20

31 Mar '20

'We've been anticipating WireGuard's inclusion into the mainline Linux kernel for quite some time—but as of Sunday afternoon, it's official. Linus Torvalds released the Linux 5.6 kernel, which includes (among other things) an in-tree WireGuard. Phoronix has a great short list of the most interesting new features in the 5.6 kernel, as well as a longer "everything list" for those who want to make sure they don't miss anything. If this is the first time you're hearing about WireGuard, the TL;DR is that it's a relatively new VPN (Virtual Private Network) application that offers a leaner codebase, easier configuration, faster connect times, and the latest and most thoroughly peer-reviewed and approved encryption algorithms. You can find a more detailed introduction in our initial August 2018 coverage.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/03/wireguard-vpn-makes-it-to-1-0-0-and… 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

#IsTheInternetDown
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 28 Mar '20

28 Mar '20

Parts of it, anyway. Currently having trouble accessing github.com and anz.co.nz. Well, what else is there to do? ;)

3 4

Public Crash Screens: Linux For A Change
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 27 Mar '20

27 Mar '20

The Register runs a regular series of reports on public signage showing crash messages instead of the ones they are supposed to show. Usually these are Microsoft Windows messages, often for hilariously out-of-date versions of Windows. This one, for a change <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/03/24/bork_walmart/>, shows a Linux boot failure. But it is still a hilariously out-of-date version of Linux.

2 2

Moving To Life Online ... With A Vengeance
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 26 Mar '20

26 Mar '20

ISPs are having a few hiccups adjusting to the massive increase in Internet usage, particularly in the daytime <https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=123201…>. Even phone calls, it seems, are overloading the landline network: Meanwhile, Spark says the indu[s]try-wide congestion problems that stopped many voice calls getting through on Monday and Tuesday are slowly starting to ease - but the telco is still encouraging people to use internet apps like Apple Facetime, WhatsApp or Skype for calls to help ease the pressure. Yeah, push even more load onto the Internet ...

2 2

Singapore Government To Make Its Contact-Tracing App Freely Available To Developers Worldwide
by Peter Reutemann 26 Mar '20

26 Mar '20

'In a move to help the international community combat the coronavirus pandemic, the Singapore government will be making the software for its contact-tracing application TraceTogether, which has already been installed by more than 620,000 people, freely available to developers around the world. From a report: In a post on Monday, Minister-in-charge of the Smart Nation Initiative Vivian Balakrishnan said that the app, developed by the Government Technology Agency (GovTech) and the Ministry of Health, will be open-sourced. This means that the software's source code will be made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. "We believe that making our code available to the world will enhance trust and collaboration in dealing with a global threat that does not respect boundaries, political systems or economies," said Dr Balakrishnan, who is also Foreign Minister. "Together, we can make our world safer for everyone."' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/20/03/25/1651232 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

The exFAT Filesystem Is Coming To Linux -- Paragon Software's Not Happy About It
by Peter Reutemann 26 Mar '20

26 Mar '20

'When software and operating system giant Microsoft announced its support for inclusion of the exFAT filesystem directly into the Linux kernel back in August, it didn't get a ton of press coverage. But filesystem vendor Paragon Software clearly noticed this month's merge of the Microsoft-approved, largely Samsung-authored version of exFAT into the VFS for-next repository, which will in turn merge into Linux 5.7 -- and Paragon doesn't seem happy about it. Yesterday, Paragon issued a press release about European gateway-modem vendor Sagemcom adopting its version of exFAT into an upcoming series of Linux-based routers. Unfortunately, it chose to preface the announcement with a stream of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) that wouldn't have looked out of place on Steve Ballmer's letterhead in the 1990s.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/20/03/25/2136223 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

Google Play’s malicious app problem infects 1.7 million more devices
by Peter Reutemann 25 Mar '20

25 Mar '20

'Google Play, the company’s official repository for Android apps, has once again been caught hosting fraudulent and potentially malicious apps, with the discovery of more than 56 apps—many of them for children—that were installed on almost 1.7 million devices. Tekya is a family of malware that generates fraudulent clicks on ads and banners delivered by agencies including Google’s AdMob, AppLovin’, Facebook, and Unity. To give the clicks the air of authenticity, the well-obfuscated code causes infected devices to use Android’s “MotionEvent” mechanism to imitate legitimate user actions. At the time researchers from security firm Check Point discovered them, the apps went undetected by VirusTotal and Google Play Protect. Twenty-four of the apps that contained Tekya were marketed to children. Google removed all 56 of the apps after Check Point reported them. The discovery “highlights once again that the Google Play Store can still host malicious apps,” Check Point researchers Israel Wernik, Danil Golubenko, and Aviran Hazum wrote in a post published on Tuesday. “There are nearly 3 million apps available from the store, with hundreds of new apps being uploaded daily–making it difficult to check that every single app is safe. Thus, users cannot rely on Google Play’s security measures alone to ensure their devices are protected.”' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/03/found-malicious-goog… 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

Mozilla Launches New Initiative With Scroll To Fund Publishers
by Peter Reutemann 25 Mar '20

25 Mar '20

'Firefox, the global web browser from Mozilla, is launching a new subscription product Tuesday called the "Firefox Better Web initiative," and it will feature former Chartbeat CEO Tony Haile's new product Scroll as a launch partner. From a report: It's uncommon for a web browser to launch a product that's explicitly tied to paying out publishers. Scroll's business is all about paying publishers for their content while giving users a better ad experience. The test pilot for the product, which is a subscription to a privacy-first Firefox extension, will only be available in the U.S. The money from a membership ($4.99 monthly, $2,99 for first six months) goes directly to fund publishers and writers.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/03/24/145235 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

Meet the Chinese OS That's Trying To Shift the Country Off Windows
by Peter Reutemann 25 Mar '20

25 Mar '20

'China's homegrown operating systems haven't made much of a dent on the global stage. Now there's a Linux-based system that's aimed at weaning the country off Windows. From a report: UOS, or Unified Operating System, hit a new milestone after its first stable release in January: Union Tech's OS can now boot in 30 seconds on China-made chips. It's an important step as Chinese tech companies look to reduce their dependence on US-made software and hardware. The struggles of ZTE and Huawei illustrate this clearly: The former was reliant on chips made in the US to produce smartphones, while the latter has the difficult task of selling Android handsets outside China without Google apps or services. The "current international climate" has made it imperative for China to have its own foundational software to avoid being cut off by the US, said the general manager of Union Tech, Liu Wenhan. While Chinese operating systems currently account for less than 1% of the market, Liu said he expects them to grow to 20% to 30% in the future. Integrating homegrown Chinese chips could be the biggest accomplishment of UOS if it pans out. Although Chinese computer chips still don't approach the sophistication of those created by US-based companies, Union Tech said that it is actively working with Chinese chipmakers like Loongson and Sunway to facilitate the gradual replacement of American technology in the Chinese government and pillar industries. In December, Beijing ordered all government offices and public institutions to remove foreign computer equipment and software within three years.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/03/24/1918223 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 Says Hackers Are Attacking Windows Users With a New Unpatched Bug
by Peter Reutemann 24 Mar '20

24 Mar '20

'Microsoft says attackers are exploiting a previously undisclosed security vulnerability found in all supported versions of Windows, including Windows 10. From a report: But the software giant said there is currently no patch for the vulnerability. The security flaw, which Microsoft deems "critical" -- its highest severity rating -- is found in how Windows handles and renders fonts, according to the advisory posted Monday. The bug can be exploited by tricking a victim into opening a malicious document. Once the document is opened -- or viewed in Windows Preview -- an attacker can remotely run malware, such as ransomware, on a vulnerable device. The advisory said that Microsoft was aware of hackers launching "limited, targeted attacks," but did not say who was launching the attacks or at what scale.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/03/23/1846216 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

WLUG meeting (virtual)
by Peter Reutemann 23 Mar '20

23 Mar '20

Hi everyone Thanks to Aarons tireless efforts, we can have our WLUG meeting despite COVID-19, though in virtual form via Youtube and Google Hangouts (see links below). As a refresher for the topic: The voice interface represents another big shift in user interfaces, and could be as big a shift as the shift from switches to terminals, the switch from terminals to windowed GUIs, or the switch from full computers to small touchscreen devices. Unfortunately, right now most of these devices are little more than a telephone for talking to a server in the cloud. That is a big problem for privacy, and presents the user with a false choice between access and privacy. Today's computers are capable of handling a verbal interface without requiring a cloud service to handle all of your requests. Aaron Chantrill is one of the developers on the Naomi Project, a free and open source voice assistant (https://projectnaomi.com) It is a plugin based system based on Jasper (http://jasperproject.github.io/) and depending on how the user chooses to configure it, can run totally offline. In this presentation, Aaron would like to introduce people to the Naomi Project, talk about the benefits of a verbal interface, talk about the current architectures of virtual assistants, and ways in which that architecture can be altered to provide better privacy, and also do a comparison of offline speech to text and text to speech solutions, including Pocketsphinx, Mozilla Deepspeech, Kaldi, and Julius. Finally, He will invite people to participate in building and improving Naomi. There is a lot to do and much of it is both engaging and cutting-edge. Aaron recorded a video of his presentation that you can watch here before the virtual meeting: https://youtu.be/8383A_t7iKQ The slides are available as well: https://github.com/aaronchantrill/NaomiPresentation/raw/master/Presentation… The Google Hangouts link for the Question & Answer session: https://hangouts.google.com/hangouts/_/calendar/ZHJhc2t5QGdtYWlsLmNvbQ.3j6l… Meetup link: https://www.meetup.com/WaikatoLinuxUsersGroup/events/269578787/ 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

[OT] The Doctor Who Helped Defeat Smallpox Explains What’s Coming
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 23 Mar '20

23 Mar '20

I realize this isn’t part of the topic of this group, but this article <https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/03/the-doctor-who-helped-defeat-smallp…> seems to me important enough that everyone should read it. It’s an interview with epidemiologist Larry Brilliant, who was part of the group that helped eradicate smallpox, and who gave a TED talk 14 years ago about what the next epidemic would look like, that is proving rather prescient right now. He gives an overview of where we are at in the knowledge of the SARS-Cov-2† virus that is causing the current COVID-19‡ pandemic. In short, as new as this virus is, it’s going to follow a lot of the same sort of behaviour as every past infectious viral disease. On facemasks: The N95 mask itself is extremely wonderful. The pores in the mask are three microns wide. The virus is one micron wide. So you get people who say, well, it's not going to work. But you try having three big, huge football players who are rushing for lunch through a door at lunchtime—they're not going to get through. In the latest data I saw, the mask provided 5x protection. That's really good. But we have to keep the hospitals going and we have to keep the health professionals able to come to work and be safe. So masks should go where they’re needed the most: in taking care of patients. †Official name of the virus ‡Official name of the disease caused by the virus

1 0

Critical bugs in dozens of Zyxel and Lilin IoT models under active exploit
by Peter Reutemann 22 Mar '20

22 Mar '20

'Criminals are exploiting critical flaws to corral Internet-of-things devices from two different manufacturers into botnets that wage distributed denial-of-service attacks, researchers said this week. Both DVRs from Lilin and storage devices from Zyxel are affected, and users should install updates as soon as possible. Multiple attack groups are exploiting the Lilin DVR vulnerability to conscript them into DDoS botnets known as FBot, Chalubo, and Moobot, researchers from security firm Qihoo 360 said on Friday. The latter two botnets are spinoffs of Mirai, the botnet that used hundreds of thousand of IoT devices to bombard sites with record-setting amounts of junk traffic. The DVR vulnerability stems from three flaws that allow attackers to remotely inject malicious commands into the device. The bugs are: (1) hard-coded login credentials present in the device, (2) command-injection flaws, and (3) arbitrary file reading weaknesses. The injected parameters affect the device capabilities for file transfer protocol, network time protocol, and the update mechanism for network time protocol.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/03/lilin-dvrs-and-zyxel… 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

Using Employer’s Proprietary Software From Home? It’ll Cost You
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 21 Mar '20

21 Mar '20

Never mind the security pitfalls of employees working from home, now there are additional licensing headaches to worry about as well, with proprietary software <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/03/20/surge_in_home_working/>: ... some vendors have curious rules about remote access to their applications that incur additional fees. Rich Gibbons, a licensing trainer at IT Asset Management (ITAM), noted that Citrix and/or Remote Desktop Services are "the easiest way to quickly become non-compliant with a LOT of vendors." ... Security is one thing, but in the midst of a global pandemic, does anyone care about licensing? "You're not going to get audited right now," Gibbons told The Reg. "But in six months or whenever this is over, you need to know what you've done."

1 0

Open-Source Project Spins Up 3D-Printed Ventilator Validation Prototype In Just One Week
by Peter Reutemann 20 Mar '20

20 Mar '20

'In a great example of what can happen when smart, technically-oriented people come together in a time of need, an open-source hardware project started by a group including Irish entrepreneur Colin Keogh and Breeze Automation CEO and co-founder Gui Calavanti has produced a prototype ventilator using 3D-printed parts and readily available, inexpensive material. The ventilator prototype was designed and produced in just seven days, after the project spun up on Facebook and attracted participation from over 300 engineers, medical professionals and researchers. The prototype will now enter into a validation process by the Irish Health Services Executive (HSE), the country's health regulatory body. This will technically only validate it for use in Ireland, which ironically looks relatively well-stocked for ventilator hardware, but it will be a key stamp of approval that could pave the way for its deployment across countries where there are shortages, including low-income nations. The group behind the ventilator also recently changed the focus of their Facebook community, renaming the group from the Open Source Ventilator Project to the Open Source COVID19 Medical Supplies community. They're looking at expanding their focus to finding ways to cheaply and effectively build and validate other needed equipment, including protective gear like masks, sanitizer and protective face guards for front-line healthcare workers.' -- source: https://science.slashdot.org/story/20/03/19/2047232 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

Samba and the French Government
by Peter Reutemann 20 Mar '20

20 Mar '20

>From the Catalyst March newsletter: 'For many years, several French Ministries have entrusted Samba with the role of authentication for Windows desktop machines - using Samba's Domain Controller capability. As modern versions of Windows began phasing out the NT4 Domain Control protocols, it became imperative for the French Ministries to upgrade to Active Directory. Thanks to the long-standing success they had had with Samba, the Ministries were keen to continue to use Samba, this time as an Active Directory (AD) Domain Controller (DC). However, the French Ministries faced a problem: the new AD domains would need to be combined so that a single domain serves a whole ministry, not just a single site. This meant that Samba needed to upscale. Samba was successfully operating in the smaller ministries of the French Government, however, scaling from a thousand users up to 100,000 users for the ministry of Finance was a new challenge that required Catalyst's Samba experts.' -- source: https://www.catalyst.net.nz/client-work/samba-and-french-government 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 1

Windows Subsystem for Linux is making inroads with developers
by Peter Reutemann 20 Mar '20

20 Mar '20

'Last week, Microsoft and Canonical (the company behind the Ubuntu Linux distribution) were scheduled to host a developer conference focused on the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) at Microsoft's Redmond campus. Ars was invited, and I had plane tickets in hand—but the physical conference was canceled at the last minute due to the coronavirus. Note that I did say the physical conference was canceled—WSLconf itself went on, with 22 speakers and 21 talks given. Virtual attendees were reportedly more than double the (sold out) physical attendee registration and included developers from all around the world. Presentations were given over the Bluejeans videoconferencing platform, and Canonical's Developer Advocate Hayden Barnes says that the recorded sessions will be made generally available soon.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/03/the-windows-subsyste… Probably useful for developers that are stuck on Windows, but I'm not gonna trade my Linux Desktop for that horrible Windows one... 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

Pixar Co-Founders Win Turing Award
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 19 Mar '20

19 Mar '20

Pat Hanrahan and Ed Catmull split the latest ACM Turing award between them <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/03/18/pixar_founders_turing_award/>, in recognition of their pioneering work in computer graphics. Catmull has his name in the “Catmull-Clark” subdivision algorithm commonly used in 3D modellers to turn polygonal shapes into more curvy ones. He headed the Computer Graphics Lab at the New York Institute of Technology (NYIT), started in 1974, with the help of a load of funding from a wealthy benefactor. Among their many projects, NYIT tried to create what would have been, in 1984, the first feature-length movie done entirely in CG. It was called “The Works”. Unfortunately they never got much further than tantalizing fragments <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgzAqRyhjVs>. Hanrahan was a key figure in the creation of the RenderMan renderer at Pixar. What was pioneering about that was the concept of a “shader”, written in a specialized programming language designed for describing how light reacts with a material. This was the “RenderMan Shading Language”. The same idea led to GLSL which became part of OpenGL later, and also the “Open Shading Language” (OSL) created and open-sourced at Sony Pictures ImageWorks, and adopted by many 3D software apps, including Blender.

1 0

Purism Librem Mini is a Tiny Linux Desktop
by Peter Reutemann 19 Mar '20

19 Mar '20

'Today, we get another diminutive desktop option, but this one is designed for Linux and privacy. From a report: Yes, Purism is finally launching a tiny desktop, and it will come pre-installed with the Debian-based PureOS. Called "Librem Mini," the cute bugger has 4 USB-A ports on the front, along with a 3.5mm audio jack, and the power button. On the rear, there are two more USB-A ports, a single USB-C port, Ethernet, HDMI, DisplayPort, and the power port. "Announcing the Purism Librem Mini. Our small form-factor mini-PC that puts freedom, privacy and security first. We're really excited about the Librem Mini, it's a device our community have wanted and we've wanted to offer for some time. The Librem Mini is accessible, small, light and powerful featuring a new 8th gen quad core i7 processor, up to 64 GB of fast DDR4 memory and 4k 60 fps video playback. It's a desktop for your home or oïfce, a media center for your entertainment, or an expandable home server for your files and applications," says Purism.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/20/03/18/1654232 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

Open Source Against The Virus
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 18 Mar '20

18 Mar '20

A researcher at Google has published plans for an Arduino-based DIY ventilator, in case hospitals run short of officially-approved units for patients <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/03/18/diy_ventilator_shortage/>. Quite a few other links there to homebrew efforts to address other ways to help deal with Covid-19. All potentially quite risky and unregulated, of course. So let’s just hope we won’t need any of it. And on a sad note: Meanwhile, technician Christian Fracassi reportedly <https://metro.co.uk/2020/03/16/firm-refuses-give-blueprint-coronavirus-equi…> helped make a 3D printed valve that helped save at least 10 lives at a hospital in Italy, although he may now face legal action from the company whose parts he copied.

1 0

Text processing in the shell
by Peter Reutemann 18 Mar '20

18 Mar '20

Hi everyone Just came across this article, which also has real-world examples: 'One of the things that makes the shell an invaluable tool is the amount of available text processing commands, and the ability to easily pipe them into each other to build complex text processing workflows. These commands can make it trivial to perform text and data analysis, convert data between different formats, filter lines, etc. When working with text data, the philosophy is to break any complex problem you have into a set of smaller ones, and to solve each of them with a specialized tool.' -- source: https://blog.balthazar-rouberol.com/text-processing-in-the-shell 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 1

meeting next Monday - cancelled
by Peter Reutemann 18 Mar '20

18 Mar '20

Hi everyone Due to COVID-19, we are cancelling all WLUG meetings for the foreseeable future. Stay safe and we'll see you again when things are back to normal! 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 1

meeting next Monday (in theory)
by Peter Reutemann 16 Mar '20

16 Mar '20

Hi everyone At this stage, the university is monitoring the COVID-19 situation but (to my knowledge) isn't closing yet nor is it curtailing meetings such as ours. However, this could change any day and I will post an update when this should happen. So, at this stage we have an exciting WLUG meeting scheduled for next Monday: 'The voice interface represents another big shift in user interfaces, and could be as big a shift as the shift from switches to terminals, the switch from terminals to windowed GUIs, or the switch from full computers to small touchscreen devices. Unfortunately, right now most of these devices are little more than a telephone for talking to a server in the cloud. That is a big problem for privacy, and presents the user with a false choice between access and privacy. Today's computers are capable of handling a verbal interface without requiring a cloud service to handle all of your requests. Aaron Chantrill is one of the developers on the Naomi Project, a free and open source voice assistant (https://projectnaomi.com) It is a plugin based system based on Jasper (http://jasperproject.github.io/) and depending on how the user chooses to configure it, can run totally offline. In this presentation, Aaron would like to introduce people to the Naomi Project, talk about the benefits of a verbal interface, talk about the current architectures of virtual assistants, and ways in which that architecture can be altered to provide better privacy, and also do a comparison of offline speech to text and text to speech solutions, including Pocketsphinx, Mozilla Deepspeech, Kaldi, and Julius. Finally, He will invite people to participate in building and improving Naomi. There is a lot to do and much of it is both engaging and cutting-edge.' Details: https://www.meetup.com/WaikatoLinuxUsersGroup/events/266792000/ https://gettogether.community/events/3276/wlug-meeting/ 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

Ice Lake GPU underperforming? Put it in powersave mode. Wait, what?
by Peter Reutemann 16 Mar '20

16 Mar '20

'Back in December, Linux users were starting to notice that Ice Lake-equipped laptops were getting better framerates in powersave mode than in performance mode. This Tuesday, Intel developer Francisco Jerez released a patchset to address the conundrum. Jerez begins by noting the fact that if your system bottleneck is I/O, boosting CPU performance won't help—the CPU can't process more data if the I/O subsystem isn't providing it fast enough. "In IO-bound scenarios (by definition) the throughput of the system doesn't improve with increasing CPU frequency beyond the threshold value at which the IO device becomes the bottleneck." Jerez goes on to note that pointlessly boosting the CPU into turbo frequencies when there's no additional data for it to process doesn't just hurt power efficiency. In the case of laptop designs, there's typically no room for desktop- or server-style "overengineering"—you've got limited space as well as limited power. This means, among other things, that there's only so much cooling to go around. "With the current governors [...] the CPU frequency tends to oscillate with the load, often with an amplitude far into the turbo range, leading to severely reduced energy efficiency." This is particularly likely to become a problem in games, where the GPU portions of the processor get a much bigger workout than the x86 CPU itself. If you unnecessarily boost CPU frequency, you waste your TDP budget dealing with unnecessary waste heat from the CPU—which may in turn require throttling the GPU, since you've already eaten through your thermal overhead.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/03/power-management-is-hard-linux-patc… 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

Internet 'is Not Working For Women and Girls', Says Sir Tim Berners-Lee
by Peter Reutemann 13 Mar '20

13 Mar '20

'Women and girls face a "growing crisis" of online harms, with sexual harassment, threatening messages and discrimination making the web an unsafe place to be, Sir Tim Berners-Lee has warned. The inventor of the world wide web said the "dangerous trend" in online abuse was forcing women out of jobs, causing girls to skip school, damaging relationships and silencing female opinions, prompting him to conclude that "the web is not working for women and girls." "The world has made important progress on gender equality thanks to the unceasing drive of committed champions everywhere," Berners-Lee wrote in an open letter to mark the web's 31st birthday on Thursday. "But I am seriously concerned that online harms facing women and girls -- especially those of colour, from LGBTQ+ communities and other marginalised groups -- threaten that progress."' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/03/12/1436247 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

Firefox 74 Slams Facebook In Solitary Confinement: Browser Add-On Stops Social Network Stalking Users Across the Web
by Peter Reutemann 13 Mar '20

13 Mar '20

'Tim Anderson reporting via The Register: The first thing users will see after updating to Mozilla's latest browser, Firefox 74, is a prompt to install the Facebook Container add-on. The Facebook Container add-on is not new, but has been enhanced in its latest version, 2.1.0, with the ability to add custom sites to the container so that you can "login with Facebook wherever you need to." The purpose of the Facebook Container is to let you continue to use Facebook but without having the social network site track your browsing elsewhere. "Installing this extension closes your Facebook tabs, deletes your Facebook cookies, and logs you out of Facebook," say the docs. When you visit Facebook and log in, the cookies it plants are isolated to the container. This prevents Facebook Like buttons and embedded comments from working on other sites. There is also an issue with sites that require or offer a Facebook login, which you can now overcome by adding those sites to the container. Sites are added by clicking a fence icon and selecting "Allow site in Facebook container." The effect is like having two web browsers, one in which you are logged into Facebook and subject to potential tracking on any site which has Facebook content, and another where Facebook has no knowledge of you.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/03/12/2027215 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/

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Modern RAM Used For Computers, Smartphones Still Vulnerable To Rowhammer Attacks
by Peter Reutemann 13 Mar '20

13 Mar '20

'According to new research published today, modern RAM cards are still vulnerable to Rowhammer attacks despite extensive mitigations that have been deployed by manufacturers over the past six years. These mitigations, collectively referred to as Target Row Refresh (TRR), are a combination of software and hardware fixes that have been slowly added to the design of modern RAM cards after 2014 when academics disclosed the first-ever Rowhammer attack. But in a new research paper titled today and titled "TRRespass: Exploiting the Many Sides of Target Row Refresh," a team of academics from universities in the Netherlands and Switzerland said they developed a generic tool named TRRespass that can be used to upgrade the old Rowhammer attacks to work on the new-and-improved TRR-protected RAM cards. The new upgraded attacks work on both DIMM and LPDDR4 memory types, and can be used to retrieve encryption keys from memory, or escalate an attacker's access right to sudo/SYSTEM-level.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/20/03/12/2042242 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/

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Security Practices At The CIA
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 13 Mar '20

13 Mar '20

The trial of an ex-CIA operative accused of leaking some military-grade hacking tools <https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2020/03/cia_dirty_laund.html> has exposed some embarrassing details about the security practices of an organization that, you would expect, has security as its core mission. They regularly used (and freely circulated) rubbish passwords for services on their intranet for the elite “Operational Support Branch”, the excuse being that access to that intranet was already being tightly controlled. The old adage that “a system is only as secure as its weakest point”? They have heard of it...

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Want To Use An Open-Source, Royalty-Free Video Codec? Pay Up, Please!
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 13 Mar '20

13 Mar '20

A company called Sisvel is assembling a pool of patents claiming to cover the AV1 video codec <https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200312/04075244087/former-refrigerator-…>. They expect to eventually have an arsenal of about 2000 patents, for which they will demand licence fees. If you remember, AV1 was created precisely to avoid the patent morass that surrounds H.265 aka HEVC.

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Microsoft delivers emergency patch to fix wormable Windows 10 flaw
by Peter Reutemann 13 Mar '20

13 Mar '20

'Microsoft on Thursday released an unscheduled fix for a critical security bug that makes it possible for attackers to remotely execute malicious code that can spread from vulnerable machine to vulnerable machine without requiring any interaction from users. The flaw, in version 3 of Microsoft's implementation of the Server Message block protocol, is present only in 32- and 64-bit Windows 10 versions 1903 and 1909 for clients and servers. Although the vulnerability is difficult to exploit in a reliable way, Microsoft and outside researchers consider it critical because it opens large networks to "wormable" attacks, in which the compromise of a single machine can trigger a chain reaction that causes all other Windows machines to quickly become infected. That's the scenario that played on with the WannaCry and NotPetya in 2017. In a bulletin accompanying Thursday's patch, Microsoft said it has no evidence the flaw is being actively exploited, but the company went on to label the bug as "exploitation more likely." That designation means malicious actors will probably develop and use exploits in the future.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/03/microsoft-delivers-e… 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/

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Windows has a new wormable vulnerability, and there’s no patch in sight
by Peter Reutemann 12 Mar '20

12 Mar '20

'Word leaked out on Tuesday of a new vulnerability in recent versions of Windows that has the potential to unleash the kind of self-replicating attacks that allowed the WannaCry and NotPetya worms to cripple business networks around the world. The vulnerability exists in version 3.1.1 of the Server Message Block, the service that’s used to share files, printers, and other resources on local networks and over the Internet. Attackers who successfully exploit the flaw can execute code of their choice on both servers and end-user computers that use the vulnerable protocol, Microsoft said in this bare-bones advisory. The flaw, which is tracked as CVE-2020-0796, affects Windows 10, versions 1903 and 1909 and Windows Server versions 1903 and 1909, which are relatively new releases that Microsoft has invested huge amounts of resources hardening against precisely these types of attacks. Patches aren’t available, and Tuesday’s advisory gave no timeline for one being released. Asked if there was a timeline for releasing a fix, a Microsoft representative said, “Beyond the advisory you linked, nothing else to share from Microsoft at this time.” In the meantime, Microsoft said vulnerable servers can be protected by disabling compression to block unauthenticated attackers from exploiting the vulnerability against an SMBv3 server. Users can use the following PowerShell command to turn off compression without needing to reboot the machine: Set-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parameters" DisableCompression -Type DWORD -Value 1 -Force That fix won't protect vulnerable client computers or servers if they connect to a malicious SMB service, but in that scenario, the attacks aren't wormable. Microsoft also recommended users block port 445, which is used to send SMB traffic between machines.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/03/windows-has-a-new-wo… 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/

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Before it sued Google for copying from Java, Oracle got rich copying IBM’s SQL
by Peter Reutemann 11 Mar '20

11 Mar '20

'More than a decade ago, Google re-implemented the Java programming language as part of its new Android mobile operating system. Oracle, the owner of Java, then sued Google for copyright infringement in 2010. Later this month, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in this epic copyright case that will have huge implications for the entire software industry—and that could cost Google billions of dollars. Google says it has done nothing wrong. Copyright law specifically excludes "systems" and "methods of operation" from copyright protection. Google argues that the aspects of Java it copied—function names, argument types, and so forth—fit squarely into these exceptions. Google also argues that copyright's fair use doctrine allows for this kind of copying. The case is being closely watched by the software industry. Companies like Microsoft and IBM have warned that Oracle's stance could create chaos for the industry. They argue that making this kind of copying illegal would not only create legal headaches for a lot of software companies—it would be bad for customers, too. Software companies copy software interfaces—known in industry jargon as application programming interfaces (APIs)—of their competitors' products all the time. This allows competing software products to be interoperable so that a customer can take software designed to work on one platform and re-use it on another. That means lower switching costs for customers. It also means lower barriers for entry for software startups, since it's easier to sell a new product if it's compatible with a software product that customers already know and trust. If anyone should understand the importance of such copying, it's Oracle. After all, Oracle got its start in the 1970s selling a database product based on the then-new structured query language (SQL). SQL was invented by IBM. And Oracle doesn't seem to have gotten a license to use it. If Oracle wins its legal battle, one ironic result will be to make the software industry less hospitable to future startups like Oracle. Incumbent software companies would have a greater ability to lock customers into their own proprietary standards. Startups wouldn't be allowed to do what Oracle did four decades ago: make its product compatible with an established competitor, then make that interoperability a selling point. As I'll explain below, Oracle's copying of SQL seems pretty similar to Google's copying of Java. But an Oracle spokeswoman disagrees. "It’s an incorrect premise, comparing apples with broccoli, and being completely divorced from the facts of the case," she wrote in a Tuesday email.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/03/before-it-sued-google-for-copyi… 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/

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Firefox 74 Arrives With Stricter Add-on Rules, TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.1 Disabled
by Peter Reutemann 11 Mar '20

11 Mar '20

'Mozilla today launched Firefox 74 for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Firefox 74 includes stricter rules for add-ons, TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.1 disabled by default, and a handful of developer features.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/03/10/1515248 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/

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Ubuntu 20.04’s zsys adds ZFS snapshots to package management [Updated]
by Peter Reutemann 11 Mar '20

11 Mar '20

'Last October, an experimental ZFS installer showed up in Eoan Ermine, the second interim Ubuntu release of 2019. Next month, Focal Fossa—Ubuntu's next LTS (Long Term Support) release—is due to drop, and it retains the ZFS installer while adding several new features to Ubuntu's system management with the fledgling zsys package. Phoronix reported this weekend that zsys is taking snapshots prior to package-management operations now, so we decided to install the latest Ubuntu 20.04 daily build and see how the new feature works.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/03/ubuntu-20-04s-zsys-adds-zfs-snapsho… 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/

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AMD Processors From 2011 To 2019 Vulnerable To Two New Attacks
by Peter Reutemann 11 Mar '20

11 Mar '20

'AMD processors manufactured between 2011 and 2019 (the time of testing) are vulnerable to two new attacks, research published this week has revealed (PDF). The two new attacks impact the security of the data processed inside the CPU and allow the theft of sensitive information or the downgrade of security features. The research team said it notified AMD of the two issues in August 2019, however, the company has not released microcode (CPU firmware) updates, claiming these "are not new speculation-based attacks," a statement that the research team disagrees with. The two new attacks target a feature of AMD CPUs known as the L1D cache way predictor. Introduced in AMD processors in 2011 with the Bulldozer microarchitecture, the L1D cache way predictor is a performance-centric feature that reduces power consumption by improving the way the CPU handles cached data inside its memory. A high-level explanation is available below: "The predictor computes a uTag using an undocumented hash function on the virtual address. This uTag is used to look up the L1D cache way in a prediction table. Hence, the CPU has to compare the cache tag in only oneway instead of all possible ways, reducing the power consumption." The two new attacks were discovered after a team of six academics [...] reverse-engineered this "undocumented hashing function" that AMD processors were using to handle uTag entries inside the L1D cache way predictor mechanism. Knowing these functions, allowed the researchers to recreate a map of what was going on inside the L1D cache way predictor and probe if the mechanism was leaking data or clues about what that data may be. While the attacks can be patched, AMD denies that these two new attacks are a concern, claiming they "are not new speculation-based attacks" and that they should be mitigated through previous patches for speculative execution side channel vulnerabilities. The research team says AMD's response is "rather misleading," and that the attacks still work on fully-updated operating systems, firmware, and software even today.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/20/03/09/2347202 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/

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Popular VPN and Ad-Blocking Apps Are Secretly Harvesting User Data
by Peter Reutemann 11 Mar '20

11 Mar '20

'Sensor Tower, a popular analytics platform for tech developers and investors, has been secretly collecting data from millions of people who have installed popular VPN and ad-blocking apps for Android and iOS, a BuzzFeed News investigation has found. These apps, which don't disclose their connection to the company or reveal that they feed user data to Sensor Tower's products, have more than 35 million downloads. Since 2015, Sensor Tower has owned at least 20 Android and iOS apps. Four of these -- Free and Unlimited VPN, Luna VPN, Mobile Data, and Adblock Focus -- were recently available in the Google Play store. Adblock Focus and Luna VPN were in Apple's App Store. Apple removed Adblock Focus and Google removed Mobile Data after being contacted by BuzzFeed News. The companies said they continue to investigate. Once installed, Sensor Tower's apps prompt users to install a root certificate, a small file that lets its issuer access all traffic and data passing through a phone. The company told BuzzFeed News it only collects anonymized usage and analytics data, which is integrated into its products. Sensor Tower's app intelligence platform is used by developers, venture capitalists, publishers, and others to track the popularity, usage trends, and revenue of apps. Randy Nelson, Sensor Tower's head of mobile insights, said the company's apps do not collect sensitive data or personally identifiable information and that "the vast majority of these apps listed are now defunct (inactive) and a few are in the process of sunsetting." But, as BuzzFeed points out, most of the apps are no longer available "because they were removed due to policy violations."' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/20/03/10/0148245 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/

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Intel CPUs Vulnerable To New LVI Attacks
by Peter Reutemann 11 Mar '20

11 Mar '20

'A team of academics from universities across the world, along with vulnerability researchers from Bitdefender, today disclosed a new security flaw in Intel processors. From a report: Named Load Value Injection, or LVI for short, this is a new class of theoretical attacks against Intel CPUs. While the attack has been deemed only a theoretical threat, Intel has released firmware patches to mitigate attacks against current CPUs, and fixes will be deployed at the hardware (silicon design) level in future generations.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/20/03/10/176200 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/

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DuckDuckGo is Good Enough For Regular Use
by Peter Reutemann 10 Mar '20

10 Mar '20

'Jake Voytko, who previously worked at Google, writing in a blog post: [...] Let's move away from Google's competitive advantages. How does DuckDuckGo perform for most of my search traffic? DuckDuckGo does a good job. I haven't found a reason to switch back to Google. I combed through my browser's history of DuckDuckGo searches. I compared it to my Google search history. When I fell back to Google, I often didn't find what I wanted on Google either. Most of my searches relate to my job, which means that most of my searches are technical queries. DuckDuckGo serves good results for my searches. I'll admit that I'm a paranoid searcher: I reformat error strings, remove identifiers that are unique to my code, and remove quotes before searching. I'm not sure how well DuckDuckGo would handle copy/pasted error strings with lots of quotes and unique identifiers. This means that I don't know if DuckDuckGo handles all technical searches well. But it does a good job for me. There are many domains where Google outperforms DuckDuckGo. Product search and local search are some examples. I recently made a window plug. It was much easier to find which big-box hardware stores had the materials I need with Google. I also recently bought a pair of ANC headphones. I got much better comparison information starting at Google. Google also shines with sparse results like rare programming error messages. If you're a programmer, you know what I'm talking about: imagine a Google search page with three results. One is a page in Chinese that has the English error string, one is a forum post that gives you the first hint that you need to solve the problem, and one is the error string in the original source code in Github. DuckDuckGo often returns nothing for these kinds of searches. Even though Google is better for some specific domains, I am confident that DuckDuckGo can find what I need. When it doesn't, Google often doesn't help either.' -- source: https://search.slashdot.org/story/20/03/09/1554252 I've been using DuckDuckGo for a number of years exclusively now and I agree with the author that when I can't find it with DDG, I can't find it with Google either. 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/

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How Wikipedia's Volunteers Became the Web's Best Weapon Against Misinformation
by Peter Reutemann 10 Mar '20

10 Mar '20

'Fast Company just published a 4,000 appreciation of Wikipedia's volunteer editors: [W]hile places like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter struggle to fend off a barrage of false content, with their scattershot mix of policies, fact-checkers, and algorithms, one of the web's most robust weapons against misinformation is an archaic-looking website written by anyone with an internet connection, and moderated by a largely anonymous crew of volunteers. "I think there's a part of that that is encouraging, that says that a radically open, collaborative worldwide project can build one of the most trusted sites on the internet," says Ryan Merkley, the chief of staff at the Wikimedia Foundation, the 400-person nonprofit that provides support to Wikipedia's community of editors. "There's another piece of that that is quite sad," he adds, "because it's clear that part of being one of the most trusted sites on the internet is because everything else has collapsed around us...." [U]nlike parts of the web where toxic information tends to spread, the encyclopedia has one big advantage: Its goal is not to "scale." It's not selling anything, not incentivizing engagement, not trying to get you to spend more time on it. Thanks to donations from thousands of donors around the world, there are no advertisers or investors to please, no algorithms to gather data or stir up emotions or personalize pages; everyone sees the same thing. That philanthropic spirit drives Wikipedia's volunteers, too, who come to the website not to share memes or jokes or even discuss the news but, marvelously, to build a reliable account of reality.... Despite the trolls and propagandists, the majority of errors, especially on controversial and highly trafficked pages, go away within minutes or hours, thanks to its phalanx of devoted volunteers. (Out of Wikipedia's 138 million registered users, about 138,000 have actively edited in the past month.) The site is self-governed according to a Byzantine body of rules that aim for courtesy and a "show your work" journalistic ethics built on accurate and balanced reporting. Vigilant community-built bots can alert Wikipedians to some basic suspicious behavior, and administrators can use restrictions to temporarily lock down the most vulnerable pages, keeping them safe from fly-by editors who are not logged in. "Most of these edits are small improvements to phrasing or content," says a 73-year-old retired physicist from Massachusetts who's done hundreds of edits himself. He adds that "a few are masterpieces, and some are vandalism."' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/03/09/0346251 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/

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Brave Says it Will Generate Random Browser Fingerprints To Preserve User Privacy
by Peter Reutemann 10 Mar '20

10 Mar '20

'The Brave browser is working on a feature that will randomize its "fingerprint" every time a user visits a website in an attempt to preserve the user's privacy. From a report: Brave's decision comes as online advertisers and analytics firms are moving away from tracking users via cookies to using fingerprints. [...] "The unfortunate truth about all these approaches is that, despite being well-intentioned, none of them are very effective in preventing fingerprinting," the Brave team said of other browser makers' approaches. "The enormous diversity of fingerprinting surface in modern browsers makes these 'block', 'lie' or 'permission' approaches somewhere between insufficient and useless, unfortunately," they added. "Brave's new approach aims to make every browser look completely unique, both between websites and between browsing sessions," Brave developers said.' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/20/03/09/1822258 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/

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FSF Plans to Launch 'Forge', a Code-Hosting/Collaboration Platform
by Peter Reutemann 09 Mar '20

09 Mar '20

'The Free Software Foundation (FSF) announced plans to launch a public code hosting and collaboration platform ("forge") this year. Members of the FSF tech team are currently reviewing ethical web-based software that will help teams work on their projects, with features like merge requests, bug tracking, and other common tools. "Infrastructure is very important for free software, and it's unfortunate that so much free software development currently relies on sites that don't publish their source code, and require or encourage the use of proprietary software," FSF wrote in a blog post. "Our GNU ethical repository criteria aim to set a high standard for free software code hosting, and we hope to meet that with our new forge." As of now, the team said it has been researching a list of candidate programs and analyzing them in terms of ethical and practical criteria. The FSF blog post adds that "We plan on contributing improvements upstream for the new forge software we choose, to boost its score on those criteria... "We'll communicate with the upstream developers to request improvements and help clarify any questions related to the ethical repository criteria."' -- source: https://developers.slashdot.org/story/20/03/08/0323217 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/

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Blu-ray discs on Linux
by Ian Young 08 Mar '20

08 Mar '20

Hello all, Having acquired a laptop with a Blu-ray drive and then a Blu-ray disc I had a go at playing the disc with various live Linux versions. The closest was having the disc recognised and opening a player window (VLC iirc) but alas with no sound or vision. Other attempts failed with messages about no AACs being available or being unable to recognise the disc. A cursory survey of various web sources indicates that the best plan is to give up or use Windows. Anyone managed to get anywhere with this in Linux? The disc in question is by the band King Crimson live in Mexico titled Meltdown. Described as NTSC, Zone ABC, LPCM playable in all B-R players and drives. Thanks ~ Ian Y

2 1

FreeNAS and TrueNAS Are Merging
by Peter Reutemann 08 Mar '20

08 Mar '20

'FreeNAS is a free and open source operating system designed for network-attached storage (NAS) devices. For much of the past decade, the project has been led by the folks at iXsystems, which has also produced an enterprise version of the software called TrueNAS. Now iXsystems has announced that FreeNAS and TrueNAS are merging. Moving forward there will be a single operating system called TrueNAS rather than two different, but closely related operating systems. According to the company, the latest versions of the operating systems (FreeNAS 11.3 and TrueNAS 11.3) already share about 95-percent of the same source code. Starting with TrueNAS 12, there will only be a single OS image. But the company will offer two editions: TrueNAS CORE: open source edition TrueNAS Enterprise: commercial version with enterprise management and support.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/03/06/234216 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/

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EFF: .Org Sale 'Threatens Instability and Dysfunction'
by Peter Reutemann 08 Mar '20

08 Mar '20

'In a scathing editorial, EFF continues to oppose Ethos Capital's plan to buy the PIR's .org domain registry for $1.1 billion, arguing that "the current system is stable and functional, and changing it threatens to introduce instability and dysfunction with no countervailing benefit to the community..." "[W]hile there is nothing currently wrong with .ORG, there is a lot that could go wrong if this deal moves forward." Ethos and PIR have repeatedly defended the proposed deal by arguing that converting PIR to a privately owned, for-profit enterprise will allow it to offer "new products and services," but without explaining what those new offerings might be. On Thursday, they finally admitted that they actually don't know what additional products and services .ORG registrants want or need, citing a lack of market research... The for-profit PIR that Ethos envisions would be a fundamentally different organization than today's PIR, and we have serious concerns about its business model and financial stability. Nothing we've heard from PIR and Ethos has convinced us that PIR should be transformed from something that we all know works to something that's unproven. To the contrary, the Ethos deal raises concrete dangers of censorship, financial and technical instability, and price-gouging of non-commercial .ORG registrants. And despite making their case for months, proponents of the deal haven't identified any specific benefits it would impart to .ORG users. ICANN can, and should, reject this change to the .ORG registry. But that time is running out; ICANN's current deadline to make a decision is Friday, March 20. You can still speak out: the ICANN Board is holding a public forum next week, Monday March 9 at 10am-11:30am Eastern Daylight Time. Anyone can join by videoconference and address the Board.' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/20/03/07/0619231 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/

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Edge Browser Scores Worst in Test of Telemetry Privacy
by Peter Reutemann 08 Mar '20

08 Mar '20

'"New academic research published last month looked at the phone-home [telemetry] features of six of today's most popular browsers and found that the Brave browser sent the smallest amount of data about its users back to the browser maker's servers," reports ZDNet: The research, conducted by Douglas J. Leith, a professor at Trinity College at the University of Dublin, looked at Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Brave, Microsoft Edge (the new Chromium-based version), and the Yandex Browser. "In the first (most private) group lies Brave, in the second Chrome, Firefox, and Safari, and in the third (least private) group lie Edge and Yandex...." [T]he professor found evidence that Chrome, Firefox, and Safari all tagged telemetry data with identifiers that were linked to each browser instance. These identifiers allowed Google, Mozilla, and Apple to track users across browser restarts, but also across browser reinstalls... [T]he most intrusive phoning-home features were found in the new version of Microsoft Edge and the official Yandex Browser. According to Prof. Leith, both used unique identifiers that were linked to the device's hardware, rather than the browser installation. Tracking users by hardware allows Microsoft and Yandex to follow users across installations and potentially link browser installs with other apps and online identities. The professor said that Edge collected the hardware UUID of the user's computer, an identifier that cannot be easily changed or deleted without altering a computer's hardware. Similarly, Prof. Leith also found that Yandex transmitted a hash of the hardware serial number and MAC address to its backend servers. "As far as we can tell this behaviour [in Edge and Yandex] cannot be disabled by users," the professor said. The article also points out that Brave was the only browser that didn't use search autocomplete functionality to collect and send back information on a user's visited web pages. (Even though this can be disabled in Firefox, Chrome, and Safari, it's on by default.) But Edge and Yandex "also sent back information about visited web pages that did not appear to be related to the search autocomplete feature, suggesting the browsers had other ways to track users' browsing habits."' -- source: https://apple.slashdot.org/story/20/03/07/0054219 A couple of articles on how to turn off telemetry within Firefox: https://www.askvg.com/tip-disable-telemetry-and-data-collection-in-mozilla-… https://www.howtogeek.com/557929/how-to-see-and-disable-the-telemetry-data-… 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/

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Google Could Have Fixed 2FA Code-Stealing Flaw in Authenticator App Years Ago
by Peter Reutemann 08 Mar '20

08 Mar '20

'Last month, a cybersecurity firm discovered the first-ever Android malware that came with the capability to steal the 2FA (two-factor authentication) codes generated by the Google Authenticator app. The malware, discovered by researchers from ThreatFabric, was named Cerberus, and its 2FA OTP code-stealing feature was still under development, yet to have been detected in a real-world attack. According to researchers, the malware was a hybrid between a banking trojan and a remote access trojan (RAT). Once an Android user got infected, the hacker would use the malware's banking trojan features to steal credentials for mobile banking apps. If an account was protected by 2FA, and namely by the Google Authenticator app, the malware was designed to allow the Cerberus gang to connect to a user's device manually, via its RAT features. Hackers would then open the Authenticator app, generate one-time passcodes, take a screenshot of the codes, and then access the user's account. [...] Nightwatch researchers said that Google could have fixed this issue as early as October 2014, when this misconfiguration was first brought to its attention by someone on GitHub.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/03/07/0918212 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/

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Hack Turns Apple's iPhone Into An Android
by Peter Reutemann 07 Mar '20

07 Mar '20

'Ten years ago, David Wang pulled off a remarkable trick, installing Android on the first-generation iPhone. Now Wang and his colleagues at cybersecurity startup Corellium are doing it again with the ostentatiously titled Project Sandcastle. From a report: And Forbes got an exclusive hands-on look at their Android for iPhone product ahead of its public release scheduled for later this Wednesday. The timing is sure to have Apple fanboys rubbernecking: Corellium is in the middle of being sued by Apple. As previously reported by Forbes, in August last year, Corellium was taken to court over Apple claims the startup breached copyright laws by creating software versions of the iPhone for security and testing. The case took a surprise turn late last month when Apple subpoenaed Spanish banking giant Santander and the $50 billion U.S. military and intelligence contractor L3Harris. But Corellium has lofty ambitions for Project Sandcastle, saying that it'll actually show how Apple's walled garden, which it has fiercely protected since launching its flagship phone in 2007, can be deconstructed and taken over by others' software. "Project Sandcastle is about having fun building something new from the sand -- from the literal silicon of the hardware," said Corellium CEO Amanda Gorton, in a statement sent to Forbes. "Apple restricts iPhone users to operate inside a sandbox, but users own that hardware, and they should be able to use that hardware the way they want. So where sandboxes create limits and boundaries on the hardware that users own, sandcastles provide an opportunity to create something new and wonderful from the limitless bounds of your imagination."' -- source: https://apple.slashdot.org/story/20/03/06/1954210 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

It’s Not All CUDA At The High End
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 06 Mar '20

06 Mar '20

This item <https://www.nextplatform.com/2020/03/05/software-evolution-on-ornls-summit-…> reports on an interview with Dr Tjerk Straatsma, group lead for scientific computing at ORNL. Seems their supers have made heavy use of NVidia GPUs up to now, but this is set to change: Frontier, the next system for the OLCF, will have AMD CPUs and GPUs. To prepare for this system, software developers may want to make changes to their programming approach, with OpenMP directive-based and HIP native offloading as the most comparable to the OpenACC and CUDA approaches on Summit today. I wonder what happened to OpenCL as the cross-platform architecture for GPU computing?

1 0

Let’s Encrypt changes course on certificate revocation
by Peter Reutemann 06 Mar '20

06 Mar '20

'Earlier this week, Let's Encrypt announced that it would revoke roughly three million—2.6 percent—of its currently active certificates. Last night, however, the organization announced that it would delay the revocation of many of those certificates in the interest of Internet health. The impact of the revocation on system administrators was and is significant due to the very short window of maintenance allowed before the revocation went into effect. Roughly thirty-six hours were available from the initial announcement to the beginning of scheduled certificate revocation. Half an hour prior to the scheduled revocations, more than one million affected certificates had still not been renewed, and Let's Encrypt announced an additional delay to give administrators more time.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/03/lets-encrypt-holds-o… 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

Almost Half of Mobile Malware Are Hidden Apps
by Peter Reutemann 06 Mar '20

06 Mar '20

'Certain apps are hiding themselves and stealing resources and data from mobile devices, according to a new report by security firm McAfee. From a report: This is a growing threat comprising almost half of all malicious mobile malware, and a 30% increase from 2018, said Raj Samani, chief scientist and McAfee fellow, who authored the Q1 2020 McAfee Mobile Threat Report. "This shows where the focus from criminals [is] on the mobile platform, which is in stark contrast to non-mobile malware,'' Samani said. A new malware family called LeifAccess or Shopper is taking advantage of the accessibility features in Android to create accounts, download apps, and post reviews, according to the report. LeifAccess, "is a broad campaign [and] is using alternate methods to achieve installation but thereafter trying to achieve legitimacy to the user with fake warnings," Samani said. For example, LeifAccess does not create an icon or shortcut, "so it's not immediately obvious that the app is installed ... but for some of the hidden apps within the report, malicious mobile attacks will even masquerade as a legitimate app," he said.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/20/03/04/2021233 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

Ampere Altra is the First 80-core ARM-based Server Processor
by Peter Reutemann 06 Mar '20

06 Mar '20

'Ampere has unveiled the industry's first 80-core ARM-based 64-bit server processor today in a bid to outdo Intel and Advanced Micro Devices in datacenter chips. From a report: Ampere announced today that it has begun providing samples of the Ampere Altra processor for modern cloud and edge computing datacenters. The Ampere Altra processor runs on 210 watts and is targeted at such server applications as data analytics, artificial intelligence, database, storage, telco stacks, edge computing, web hosting, and cloud-native applications. Intel dominates about 95.5% of the server chip market with its x86-based processors, and AMD has the rest. But Ampere is targeting power-efficient, high-performance, and high-memory capacity features. Renee James, former president of Intel and CEO of Ampere, said in an interview with VentureBeat that the chip is faster than a 64-core AMD Epyc processor and Intel's 28-core high-end Xeon "Cascade Lake" chip.' -- sources: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/20/03/04/2027230 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

Intel CSME Bug Worse Than Previously Thought
by Peter Reutemann 06 Mar '20

06 Mar '20

'Security researchers say that a bug in one of Intel's CPU technologies that was patched last year is actually much worse than previously thought. From a report: "Most Intel chipsets released in the last five years contain the vulnerability in question," said Positive Technologies in a report published today. Attacks are impossible to detect, and a firmware patch only partially fixes the problem. To protect devices that handle sensitive operations, researchers recommend replacing CPUs with versions that are not impacted by this bug. Only the latest Intel 10th generation chips are not vulnerable, researchers said. The actual vulnerability is tracked as CVE-2019-0090, and it impacts the Intel Converged Security and Management Engine (CSME), formerly called the Intel Management Engine BIOS Extension (Intel MEBx). ' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/20/03/05/149222 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

GCHQ’s Advice For Securing Smart-Home Gadgets
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 05 Mar '20

05 Mar '20

For those who can’t be bothered trying to understand the ins and outs of security concerns with “Internet-Of-Things” devices <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/03/03/ncsc_smart_gadget_security_tips/> such as cameras and baby monitors, GCHQ advises: * If your camera comes with a default password, change it to a secure one – connecting three random words which you'll remember is a good way to do this. You can usually change your password using the app you use to manage the device. * Keep your camera secure by regularly updating security software. Not only does this keep your devices secure, but often adds new features and other improvements. * If you do not use the feature that lets you remotely access the camera from the internet, it is recommended you disable it.

1 0

Let’s Encrypt discovers CAA bug, must revoke customer certificates
by Peter Reutemann 05 Mar '20

05 Mar '20

'On Leap Day, Let's Encrypt announced that it had discovered a bug in its CAA (Certification Authority Authorization) code. The bug opens up a window of time in which a certificate might be issued even if a CAA record in that domain's DNS should prohibit it. As a result, Let's Encrypt is erring on the side of security and safety rather than convenience and revoking any currently issued certificates it can't be certain are legitimate, saying: Unfortunately, this means we need to revoke the certificates that were affected by this bug, which includes one or more of your certificates. To avoid disruption, you'll need to renew and replace your affected certificate(s) by Wednesday, March 4, 2020. We sincerely apologize for the issue. If you're not able to renew your certificate by March 4, the date we are required to revoke these certificates, visitors to your site will see security warnings until you do renew the certificate.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/03/lets-encrypt-revokin… 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

Microsoft Retiring MCSA/MCSD/MCSE Certifications
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 04 Mar '20

04 Mar '20

Came across this Microsoft article <https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/learning/community-blog-post.aspx?BlogId=8&…> (linked from this YouTube video <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laaGuJItNCM>) explaining that Microsoft is “retiring” its more broad-based MCSA, MCSD and MCSE certifications in favour of a range of narrower, “role-based” ones. You’ll notice in the diagram on that page that everything starts with the cloud now: Azure, Dynamics 365 and Microsoft 365. And as we know, Microsoft has previously admitted that Azure is more about Linux instances rather than Windows ones. Myself, I never understood the emphasis on vendor-specific certifications. They have a short shelf-life, requiring continual “refreshing” or “updating” to new product versions--basically another revenue stream for the vendor.

1 0

Cisco: Avoid Coronavirus, Stay Home, Use Webex
by Peter Reutemann 04 Mar '20

04 Mar '20

'Ars Technica: Networking giant Cisco is getting into the coronavirus monitoring and mitigation game with its Webex remote meeting property. The company notes that in the wake of mandates issued to employees to halt travel plans and/or work from home, traffic across its Webex backbone has increased significantly. Webex meeting traffic connecting Chinese users to global workplaces has increased by a factor of 22 since the outbreak began; traffic in other Asian countries is up by 400 percent or more, and free signup rates in impacted countries have increased 700 percent or more. In response, Cisco is offering temporarily unlimited usage (with no time restrictions) in all countries where the service is available (full list here), not just the ones worst hit by coronavirus. The company is also offering free 90-day licenses to businesses that are not currently Webex customers and offering free upgrades to customers whose current plan is insufficient to accommodate increased traffic due to the outbreak. In the worst affected countries, telepresence and remote work software like Webex is currently the only alternative to a complete shutdown of activities. In its press release, Cisco highlights the Nesbitt Center, an organization working with disabled young adults in Hong Kong. All Hong Kong schools, including the Nesbitt Center, have been required to suspend day programs during the outbreak. Webex videoconferencing has allowed the Nesbitt Center to continue delivering educational sessions despite the lockdown. Ars Technica also recommends Jitsi, a "free and open source software, offering video call and screen sharing capabilities." There's also Jitsi Meet for people "who just need to get something done on-the-fly with no setup at all." Do you have a favorite remote work software?' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/03/03/2013226/cisco-avoid-coronavirus-st… 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

If You Like RSS, You'll Love Fraidycat
by Peter Reutemann 04 Mar '20

04 Mar '20

'J. Fergus, writing for Input: Someone finally did it. We can now follow who we want on our own terms and get that information chronologically. Fraidycat is an app and browser extension that allows just that. Though it launched in November 2019, Fraidycat recently got a massive update, widening its compatibility and adding a dark mode. The open-source tool, brought to you by Kicks Condor, is available for Linux, Mac, and Windows in addition to Mozilla Firefox and Chrome as an extension. Fraidycat definitely pulls from RSS feeds more easily, but it also works on Twitter, Instagram, and SoundCloud. You drop the link to the account you'd like to follow -- from Medium bloggers to Twitch streamers to vision board Pinterest-ers -- and set how frequently you'd like to see their posts. Label it, hit save, and posts will appear as often as you'd like. The recent update notably folds Kickstarter into the mix and collapses Twitter threads for readability.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/03/03/1441254 Personally, I use the "Feeder" app on my phone for my RSS feeds: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.nononsenseapps.feeder/ But Fraidycat looks like an interesting project. 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

Firefox: removing "Save link to Pocket" menu item
by Peter Reutemann 04 Mar '20

04 Mar '20

Hi everyone Ever got annoyed at the "Save link to Pocket" in Firefox's right-click popup menu? In case you don't use that feature (like me), here's how you can turn it off (and also re-enable): https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/disable-or-re-enable-pocket-for-firefox It boils down to toggling the following setting ("about:config"): extensions.pocket.enabled 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 1

Freedb.org Is Shutting Down
by Peter Reutemann 03 Mar '20

03 Mar '20

'Freedb, the community-generated database of music CD metadata, is shutting down on March 31, 2020. The service was set up as a free alternative to CDDB. Many CD-ripping applications pull metadata from Freedb to save the user having to type it in manually, but the service has some major limitations and has now been superseded by MusicBrainz. This wouldn't be the first time Freedb shut down. In 2006, the site shut down due to a disagreement among its developers, only to be brought back to life a few months later. It's unclear why Freedb is shutting down after all these years.' -- source: https://developers.slashdot.org/story/20/03/02/2245216 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

'Have I Been Pwned' Is No Longer For Sale
by Peter Reutemann 03 Mar '20

03 Mar '20

'Troy Hunt, the owner and founder of the well-known and respected data breach notification website "Have I Been Pwned," announced in a blog post today that his website is no longer being sold and will continue running independently. The news comes several months after Hunt announced he was actively looking for a buyer. Last June, Hunt wrote: "To date, every line of code, every configuration and every breached record has been handled by me alone. There is no 'HIBP team,' there's one guy keeping the whole thing afloat. It's time for HIBP to grow up. It's time to go from that one guy doing what he can in his available time to a better-resourced and better-funded structure that's able to do way more than what I ever could on my own." Now, according to Hunt, "unexpected changes" with the business model of the party believed to be the purchaser of the service "made the deal infeasible." "It wasn't something I could have seen coming nor was it anything to do with HIBP itself, but it introduced a range of new and insurmountable barriers," writes Hunt in today's blog post. Hunt goes on to explain what's been happening since April 2019 and how the service will operate in the future. ' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/20/03/02/2148230 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

An Update On Microsoft's 'GitHub Arctic Vault Program'
by Peter Reutemann 02 Mar '20

02 Mar '20

'news.com.au reports: The GitHub Arctic Vault program is part of the now Microsoft-owned code repository GitHub...aimed at preserving the information for generations to come... "We chose to store GitHub's public repositories in the Arctic World Archive in Svalbard [a Norwegian island] because it is one of the most remote and geopolitically stable places on Earth and is about a mile down the road from the famous Global Seed Vault," said GitHub vice president of special projects Thomas Dohmke. Mr Dohmke said open source code in particular was worth preserving... "Ultimately, it's time to create multiple durable backups of the software our world depends on..." Other treasures include the original source code for MS-DOS (the precursor to Microsoft Windows), the open source code that powers Bitcoin, Facebook's React, and the publishing platform Wordpress... "The Arctic Code Vault was just the beginning of the GitHub Archive Program's journey to secure the world's open source code," GitHub vice president of special projects Thomas Dohmke told news.com.au. "We've partnered with multiple organisations and advisers to help us maximise the GitHub Archive Program's value and preserve all open-source software for future generations." One of those partners is Norwegian archival experts Piql, who specialise in very-long-term data storage. The company uses around 200 silver halide and polyester film reels designed to last a thousand years to store the information... ' -- source: https://developers.slashdot.org/story/20/03/01/2015212 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

Ghostcat Bug Impacts All Apache Tomcat Versions Released in the Last 13 Years
by Peter Reutemann 01 Mar '20

01 Mar '20

'Apache Tomcat servers released in the last 13 years are vulnerable to a bug named Ghostcat that can allow hackers to take over unpatched systems. From a report: Discovered by Chinese cybersecurity firm Chaitin Tech, Ghostcat is a flaw in the Tomcat AJP protocol. AJP stands for Apache JServ Protocol and is a performance-optimized version of the HTTP protocol in binary format. Tomcat uses AJP to exchange data with nearby Apache HTTPD web servers or other Tomcat instances. Tomcat's AJP connector is enabled by default on all Tomcat servers and listens on the server's port 8009. Chaitin researchers say they discovered a bug in AJP that can be exploited to either read or write files to a Tomcat server.' -- source: https://apache.slashdot.org/story/20/02/28/184218 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

NZ Domain Costs Going Up
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 29 Feb '20

29 Feb '20

InternetNZ is seeing fewer registrations of .nz domains, so it is raising prices <https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=123126…>. Apparently some are using .kiwi, and others are simply setting up pages on Facebook instead.

1 0

How Melissa Di Donato Is Going To Reinvent SUSE
by Peter Reutemann 28 Feb '20

28 Feb '20

'SUSE is one of the oldest open source companies and the first to market Linux for the enterprise. Even though it has undergone several acquisitions and a merger, it remains a strong player in the business. It has maintained its integrity and core values around open source. It continues to rely on its tried-and-tested Linux business and European markets, and generally shies away from making big moves taking big risks. Until now. SUSE appointed Melissa Di Donato as its first female CEO. She is making some serious changes to the company, from building a diverse and inclusive culture to betting on emerging technologies and taking risks. Soon after taking the helm last year, Di Donato spent the first few months traveling around the globe to meet SUSE teams and customers and get a better sense of the perception of the market about the company. Just like Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst, Di Donato didn’t come to the company from an open source background. She had spent the last 25 years of her career as a SUSE customer, so she did have an outsider’s perspective of the company. “I am not interested in what SUSE was when I joined. I am more interested in what we want to become,” she said.' -- source: https://www.linux.com/topic/open-source/how-melissa-di-donato-is-going-to-r… 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

Raspberry Pi 4 Linux Computer Gets Twice the RAM and USB-C Power Fix
by Peter Reutemann 28 Feb '20

28 Feb '20

'Brian Fagioli, writing for BetaNews: The Raspberry Pi line has provided great little Linux computers to nerds -- its low price and small size makes it ideal for tinkering and doing projects. But also, the device has proven to be a solid media device, wonderful for watching videos and emulating classic video games. In other words, it has been a very versatile computer, serving as many things to many people. With the release of the Raspberry Pi 4, however, it finally became powerful enough to serve as a true desktop computer. By installing a Linux distribution, some people can use it for day-to-day computer use, such as web browsing, playing media, and word processing. Unfortunately, the $35 base model came with a paltry 1GB of RAM. Today, this changes, as the company has dropped the price of the 2GB version to $35, effectively doubling the memory for the base model.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/20/02/27/1520258 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

Quotes From RSA
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 27 Feb '20

27 Feb '20

Among the plethora of pithy apothegms from the panel of crypto experts at the RSA Conference <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/02/26/rsa_2020_panel_discussion/>: “I give fusion power a higher chance of succeeding than quantum computing.” -- Ron Rivest “Blockchain is the wrong security technology for voting. I like to think of it as bringing a combination lock to a kitchen fire.” -- Ron Rivest “Intelligence is not about playing fair, it is about succeeding.” -- Whitfield Diffie, on the Crypto AG backdooring saga “I would like to understand how right to be forgotten could be for anything except to keep the little people in line. It is not the right to be forgotten by the secret police.” -- Whitfield Diffie Of course, there were some dissenting opinions to that last one ...

1 0

Smithsonian Releases 2.8 Million Images And 3D Models Into The Public Domain
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 27 Feb '20

27 Feb '20

Just came across this news report <https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200225/14150743985/smithsonian-releases…> about the Smithsonian Institution making a whole bunch of stuff available for free download and reuse under a Creative Commons CC0 licence. More info on their home page <https://www.si.edu/OpenAccess>. I had a quick look at one or two 3D models from <https://3d.si.edu/cc0>, and I see OBJ, glTF (OpenGL Transfer Format) and GLB (binary version of glTF) options available. These are all open formats, well-supported in non-proprietary software.

2 1

Ars takes the new Opera R2020 browser for a spin
by Peter Reutemann 27 Feb '20

27 Feb '20

'Conclusion We've been briefly excited by lesser-known browsers many times in the last 20 years, only to eventually gravitate back to the most comfortable of the big, common options. But the tide may be turning for lesser-known options like Opera. Using the same Chromium open source browser upstream as Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge do, there aren't likely to be many compatibility surprises—at least for Windows and Mac users. The Good - Opera feels both fast and familiar (enough) for anyone accustomed to Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, or Firefox - First-rate Linux installation and update experience - The stand-out features feel immediately useful—Snapshot, VPN, Workspaces, pinned Messengers, and My Flow all fit very neatly and obviously into our existing workflows - Chromium upstream base means sites render familiarly and accurately to Chrome or Edge users - Battery saver feature makes bloated sites feel less bloated and wasteful, even on a desktop The Bad - Unit and currency conversion is still a little wonky and limited - DRM is completely non-functional on Linux The Ugly - Many Linux users won't care about broken DRM for philosophical reasons—but they won't use a non-Libre browser, for the same philosophical reasons' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/02/browser-review-opera-r2020-and-oper… 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

Flaw in Billions of Wi-Fi Devices Left Communications Open To Eavesdropping
by Peter Reutemann 27 Feb '20

27 Feb '20

'Billions of devices -- many of them already patched -- are affected by a Wi-Fi vulnerability that allows nearby attackers to decrypt sensitive data sent over the air, researchers said on Wednesday at the RSA security conference. From a report: The vulnerability exists in Wi-Fi chips made by Cypress Semiconductor and Broadcom, the latter a chipmaker Cypress acquired in 2016. The affected devices include iPhones, iPads, Macs, Amazon Echos and Kindles, Android devices, Raspberry Pi 3's, and Wi-Fi routers from Asus and Huawei. Eset, the security company that discovered the vulnerability, said the flaw primarily affects Cyperess' and Broadcom's FullMAC WLAN chips, which are used in billions of devices. Eset has named the vulnerability Kr00k, and it is tracked as CVE-2019-15126. Manufacturers have made patches available for most or all of the affected devices, but it's not clear how many devices have installed the patches. Of greatest concern are vulnerable wireless routers, which often go unpatched indefinitely. "This results in scenarios where client devices that are unaffected (either patched or using different Wi-Fi chips not vulnerable to Kr00k) can be connected to an access point (often times beyond an individual's control) that is vulnerable," Eset researchers wrote in a research paper published on Wednesday. "The attack surface is greatly increased, since an adversary can decrypt data that was transmitted by a vulnerable access point to a specific client (which may or may not be vulnerable itself)."' -- source: https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/20/02/26/165207 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

Firefox for Mac and Linux To Get a New Security Sandbox System
by Peter Reutemann 26 Feb '20

26 Feb '20

'Mozilla will add a new security sandbox system to Firefox on Linux and Firefox on Mac. The new technology, named RLBox, works by separating third-party libraries from an app's native code. From a report: This process is called "sandboxing," and is a widely used technique that can prevent malicious code from escaping from within an app and executing at the OS level. RLBox is an innovative project because it takes sandboxing to the next level. Instead of isolating the app from the underlying operating system, RLBox separates an app's internal components -- namely its third-party libraries -- from the app's core engine. This technique prevents bugs and exploits found inside a third-party library from impacting another project that uses the same library.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/02/25/2028214 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

Firefox To Enable DNS-over-HTTPS by Default To US Users
by Peter Reutemann 26 Feb '20

26 Feb '20

'Mozilla will bring its new DNS-over-HTTPS security feature to all Firefox users in the U.S. by default in the coming weeks, the browser maker has confirmed. From a report: It follows a year-long effort to test the new security feature, which aims to make browsing the web more secure and private. Whenever you visit a website -- even if it's HTTPS enabled -- the DNS query that converts the web address into an IP address that computers can read is usually unencrypted. DNS-over-HTTPS, or DoH, encrypts the request so that it can't be intercepted or hijacked in order to send a user to a malicious site. These unencrypted DNS queries can also be used to snoop on which websites a user visits. DoH works at the app-level, and is baked into Firefox. The feature relies on sending DNS queries to third-party providers -- such as Cloudflare and NextDNS -- both of which will have their DoH offering baked into Firefox and will process DoH queries.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/20/02/25/1210223 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

PayPal Accounts Are Getting Abused En-masse For Unauthorized Payments
by Peter Reutemann 26 Feb '20

26 Feb '20

'Hackers have found a bug in PayPal's Google Pay integration and are now using it to carry out unauthorized transactions via PayPal accounts. From a report: Since last Friday, users have reported seeing mysterious transactions pop up in their PayPal history as originating from their Google Pay account. Issues have been reported on numerous platforms, such as PayPal's forums, Reddit, Twitter, and Google Pay's Russian and German support forums. Victims reported that hackers abused Google Pay accounts to buy products using linked PayPal accounts. According to screenshots and various testimonies, most of the illegal transactions are taking place at US stores, and especially at Target stores across New York. Most of the victims appear to be German users.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/20/02/25/1213209 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

Open Source Licences: What, Which & Why
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 25 Feb '20

25 Feb '20

A good overview <https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/02/how-to-choose-an-open-source-licens…> for anybody having anything to do with Open Source, not just those trying to decide what licence to choose for their own projects. Basic recommendation: stick to something approved by the Open Source Initiative, and above all avoid making up a licence of your own.

2 1

EU Commission To Staff: Switch To Signal Messaging App
by Peter Reutemann 25 Feb '20

25 Feb '20

'The European Commission has told its staff to start using Signal, an end-to-end-encrypted messaging app, in a push to increase the security of its communications. From a report: The instruction appeared on internal messaging boards in early February, notifying employees that "Signal has been selected as the recommended application for public instant messaging." The app is favored by privacy activists because of its end-to-end encryption and open-source technology. "It's like Facebook's WhatsApp and Apple's iMessage but it's based on an encryption protocol that's very innovative," said Bart Preneel, cryptography expert at the University of Leuven. "Because it's open-source, you can check what's happening under the hood," he added. Signal was developed in 2013 by privacy activists. It is supported by a nonprofit foundation that has the backing of WhatsApp founder Brian Acton, who had left the company in 2017 after clashing with Facebook's leadership.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/02/24/1430211 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/

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Apple To Release First ARM Mac Without Intel Processor in Next 18 Months, Predicts Kuo
by Peter Reutemann 25 Feb '20

25 Feb '20

Since we were talking about ARM chips at last night's meeting, this seems an interesting bit of news: 'Ming-Chi Kuo is out with a new analyst note today and the most interesting part of his forecast is that Apple will release its first Mac with an ARM processor in the first half of 2021. From a report: Kuo is predicting that one of Apple's new products to be released within the next 12-18 months will be a Mac with an in-house processor, instead of using an Intel CPU. There have been growing reports over the last couple of years about Apple making the switch to a custom-designed ARM processor for its Macs and today's report gives a concrete timeframe for when to expect that launch, which has actually held true since Kuo's prediction back in 2018. Since the coronavirus outbreak, Kuo highlights that Apple has been "more aggressive" with its funding for research, development, and production of 5nm process chips that are expected to show up in the first Macs with ARM CPUs. That's because 5nm chips will be integral to iPhone, iPad later this year, as well as Macs come 2021.' -- source: https://apple.slashdot.org/story/20/02/24/184242 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/

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Tablet converted from Win10 to Linux
by Ian Stewart 25 Feb '20

25 Feb '20

Hi Guys, A correction to my story at last nights meeting about converting a tablet from running Win10 to running Debian LXDE. In looking back at the notes I made during this installation, the tablet was an ACER Switch 10 - Model SW5-012. It's CPU is an Intel Atom Processor Z3735F, 4x core, 64-bit, 1.33GHz. Last night I thought its CPU was an ARM chip. However it seems that this CPU has a similarity to ARM in that it needs to initially boot images written in 32-bit code in order to start booting the 64 bit Linux. Although I didn't succeed, in theory I could have installed a 64-bit Ubuntu LXDE 19.10 version, and got it to boot by putting 32 bit images into the /boot partition. That is according to this<https://www.instructables.com/id/Linux-Kiosk-Tablet-From-Acer-Aspire-Switch…> document. Instead I used the debian-live-10.2.0-i386-lxde.iso image and booted it from a USB stick to do an installation to the tablets MMC drive. At the moment the Debian Live team only produce i386 and AMD64 iso's. They do not produce an ARM iso. So the installation approach I took with this tablet, wouldn't work with Mike's PINEBook Pro (ARM) laptop. cheers, Ian.

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Gopher's Rise and Fall Shows How Much We Lost When Monopolists Stole the Net
by Peter Reutemann 23 Feb '20

23 Feb '20

'Science-fiction writer, journalist and longtime Slashdot reader, Cory Doctorow, a.k.a. mouthbeef, writes: The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) just published the latest installment in my case histories of "adversarial interoperability" -- once the main force that kept tech competitive. Today, I tell the story of Gopher, the web's immediate predecessor, which burrowed under the mainframe systems' guardians and created a menu-driven interface to campus resources, then the whole internet. Gopher ruled until browser vendors swallowed Gopherspace whole, incorporating it by turning gopher:// into a way to access anything on any Gopher server. Gopher served as the booster rocket that helped the web attain a stable orbit. But the tools that Gopher used to crack open the silos, and the moves that the web pulled to crack open Gopher, are radioactively illegal today. If you wanted do to Facebook what Gopher did to the mainframes, you would be pulverized by the relentless grinding of software patents, terms of service, anticircumvention law, bullshit theories about APIs being copyrightable. Big Tech blames "network effects" for its monopolies -- but that's a counsel of despair. If impersonal forces (and not anticompetitive bullying) are what keeps tech big then there's no point in trying to make it small. Big Tech's critics swallow this line, demanding that Big Tech be given state-like duties to police user conduct -- duties that require billions and total control to perform, guaranteeing tech monopolists perpetual dominance. But the lesson of Gopher is that adversarial interoperability is judo for network effects.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/02/21/2240222 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 1

Dongle!!
by john 21 Feb '20

21 Feb '20

Hi All, Anyone care to help me with this issue please?? I just bought a USB Bluetooth adapter the icon on the desktop states ' standard: Detected Distance:255;Current State:gone; Status:No bluetooth device configured... Simulation mode (locking disabled)' Output from terminal. lsusb. Bus 003 Device 002: ID 0a12:0001 Cambridge Silicon Radio, Ltd Bluetooth Dongle (HCI mode) Output from "dmesg" 15.616762] Bluetooth: Core ver 2.22 [ 15.616785] NET: Registered protocol family 31 [ 15.616786] Bluetooth: HCI device and connection manager initialized [ 15.616790] Bluetooth: HCI socket layer initialized [ 15.616793] Bluetooth: L2CAP socket layer initialized [ 15.616800] Bluetooth: SCO socket layer initialized [ 18.714533] Bluetooth: BNEP (Ethernet Emulation) ver 1.3stan [ 18.714536] Bluetooth: BNEP filters: protocol multicast [ 18.714542] Bluetooth: BNEP socket layer initialized [ 20.153867] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): enp1s0: link is not ready [ 20.246093] r8169 0000:01:00.0 enp1s0: link down [ 20.246348] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): enp1s0: link is not ready [ 20.258191] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlx0019e08c5078: link is not ready [ 20.289093] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlx0019e08c5078: link is not ready [ 20.548998] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlx0019e08c5078: link is not ready [ 21.932491] wlx0019e08c5078: authenticate with 18:f1:45:96:63:4b [ 21.937373] wlx0019e08c5078: send auth to 18:f1:45:96:63:4b (try 1/3) [ 21.939214] wlx0019e08c5078: authenticated [ 21.939962] wlx0019e08c5078: associate with 18:f1:45:96:63:4b (try 1/3) [ 21.942561] wlx0019e08c5078: RX AssocResp from 18:f1:45:96:63:4b (capab=0x431 status=0 aid=1) [ 21.943456] wlx0019e08c5078: associated [ 21.981876] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): wlx0019e08c5078: link becomes ready [ 26.871648] Bluetooth: RFCOMM TTY layer initialized [ 26.871656] Bluetooth: RFCOMM socket layer initialized [ 26.871663] Bluetooth: RFCOMM ver 1.11

2 1

Google launches the Android 11 Developer Preview today
by Peter Reutemann 21 Feb '20

21 Feb '20

'It's a bit earlier than the usual March release, but today Google is launching the first Android 11 Developer Preview. This first OS preview is coming to the Pixel 2, 3, 3a, and 4, along with generic system images for Project Treble devices. It also has a new name. Typically these releases have been denoted by a letter—Android 10 was the "Android Q Preview"—and while Android 11 is still called "Android R" internally, publicly this is the "Android 11 Developer Preview" to all us non-Googlers. True to form, Google has already started with the Spinal Tap references and starts the blog post with a dial that goes to 11. For now we're just working off a giant blog post with lots of bullet points, and nearly zero screenshots, so we're not sure what the scope of this release is really like. We'll have a hands-on later, but for now, here are some highlights. Android 10—The Ars Technica Review One of the most-used features of Android 11 will probably be a new "one-time permission" option for apps that want to access location, microphone, and camera data. In Android 10, Google added the ability to grant a permission to an app only when it was running in the foreground, and now users will be able to grant access to a permission a single time. This is already in iOS, and it makes a lot of sense for certain apps.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/02/google-launches-the-android-11-deve… 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/

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The Linux Foundation Identifies Most Important Open-Source Software Components and Their Problems
by Peter Reutemann 21 Feb '20

21 Feb '20

'The Linux Foundation's Core Infrastructure Initiative (CII) and the Laboratory for Innovation Science at Harvard (LISH) have revealed -- in "Vulnerabilities in the Core, a preliminary report and Census II of open-source software" -- the most frequently used components and the vulnerabilities they share. From a report: This Census II analysis and report is the first major study of its kind but isn't a final analysis. It takes important first steps and lays out a methodology for understanding and addressing open-source software structural and security complexities. Specifically, it also identifies the most commonly used free and open-source software (FOSS) components in production applications and examines them for potential vulnerabilities. To create this work, CII and LISH partnered with Software Composition Analysis (SCAs) and application security companies such as Snyk and Synopsys Cybersecurity Research Center. They combined private usage data with publicly available datasets for identifying over 200 of the most used open-source software projects. These are not the programs -- Apache, MySQL, Linux -- that probably spring to your mind. For all their foundational importance, it's the small building block programs that are most widely used. They may be small, sometimes less than a hundred lines of code (LoC), but they're vital. As Frank Nagle, a professor at Harvard Business School and co-director of the Census II project, said: "FOSS was long seen as the domain of hobbyists and tinkerers. However, it has now become an integral component of the modern economy and is a fundamental building block of everyday technologies like smart phones, cars, the Internet of Things, and numerous pieces of critical infrastructure. Understanding which components are most widely used and most vulnerable will allow us to help ensure the continued health of the ecosystem and the digital economy."' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/02/20/1349241 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 To Bring Its Defender Antivirus Software To iOS and Android
by Peter Reutemann 21 Feb '20

21 Feb '20

'Microsoft said today it plans to bring its antivirus software, Defender Advanced Threat Protection, to phones and other devices running Apple's iOS and Google's Android. From a report: The software, also called Defender ATP, is already available on Windows and MacOS. It offers features like preventive protection, post-breach detection and automated investigation and response, according to Microsoft. When it comes to mobile devices, Microsoft's Rob Lefferts said that the Defender software could help companies protect employees from things like malware and phishing attacks. Apple's and Google's app stores are "pretty safe," Lefferts said, but "malware does happen on those platforms."' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/20/02/20/1928225 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

VPN
by john 20 Feb '20

20 Feb '20

Are any of the Mozilla add-ons listed in the attachment a good thing to add to Firefox? Cheers John...

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Mozilla's Standalone Firefox VPN is Now Available in Beta
by Peter Reutemann 20 Feb '20

20 Feb '20

'Mozilla has a new virtual private network service and if you have a Chromebook, a Windows 10 computer or an Android device in the US, you can start using a beta version now. From a report: Called Firefox Private Network, the new service is designed to function as a full-device VPN and give better protection when surfing the web or when using public Wi-Fi networks. The company offers two options: a free browser-extension version, which it launched in beta last year, that provides 12 one-hour VPN passes when using the Firefox browser and a Firefox account; and a second, $4.99-a-month option that provides a more complete VPN service across your whole device. The new paid option, which runs off of servers provided by Swedish open-source VPN company Mullvad, can protect up to five devices with one account. It allows for faster browsing and streaming, and gives you the ability to tap into servers located in "30-plus countries" for masking your location data.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/02/19/1910233 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/

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Why fixing security vulnerabilities in medical devices, IoT is so hard
by Peter Reutemann 20 Feb '20

20 Feb '20

'When your family opened up that brand-new computer when you were a kid, you didn’t think of all of the third-party work that made typing in that first BASIC program possible. There once was a time when we didn't have to worry about which companies produced all the bits of licensed software or hardware that underpinned our computing experience. But recent malware attacks and other security events have shown just how much we need to care about the supply chain behind the technology we use every day. The URGENT/11 vulnerability, the subject of a Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency advisory issued last July, is one of those events. It forces us to care because it affects multiple medical devices. And it serves as a demonstration of how the software component supply chain and availability of support can affect the ability of organizations to update devices to fix security bugs—especially in the embedded computing space. URGENT/11 is a vulnerability in the Interpeak Networks TCP/IP stack (IPNet), which was licensed out to multiple vendors of embedded operating systems. IPNet also became the main networking stack in Wind River VxWorks, until Wind River acquired Interpeak in 2006 and stopped supporting IPNet. (Wind River itself was acquired by Intel in 2009 and spun off in 2018.) But the end of support didn’t stop several other manufacturers from continuing to use IPNet. When critical bugs were discovered in IPNet, it set off a scare among the numerous medical device manufacturers that run it as part of their product build.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/02/medical-device-vulne… 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

Firefox 73 Attack Dog
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 19 Feb '20

19 Feb '20

Did my roughly-monthly update of Debian Unstable yesterday, and got yet another new version of Firefox. Quite sobering to see the extra protections being triggered now, on sites that I regularly visit. I got a warning earlier today about fingerprinters on aljazeera.com, though on revisiting the site a minute ago these no longer show up. Still an amazing number of cross-site tracking cookies, also present on arstechnica.com. The report for the latter shows a couple of fingerprinters currently being blocked, even though I got no explicit warning about that. It also says that “cryptominers” are blocked by default, but when I visited a certain well-known torrent-search site which has a policy of mining bitcoins on users’ machines, it didn’t show any present on that site, even though I could still hear my machine’s fans cranking up from the increased CPU load (which went away when I closed that tab).

1 0

Google Confirms It Again Removed Alleged Spying Tool ToTok From Google Play
by Peter Reutemann 18 Feb '20

18 Feb '20

'Google has confirmed that the popular messaging app ToTok, which is actually a spying tool used by the United Arab Emirates to track the activities of those who download it, has again been removed from the Play Store. But this time they declined to comment as to why. TechCrunch reports: Reached for comment, Google confirmed to TechCrunch that it removed the app from Google Play. In addition, Google noted the enforcement was not done in response to any external direction or request. That means the U.S. government did not get involved here, rather that Google chose to remove the app itself -- likely for a policy violation. According to The NYT's original report, ToTok had been downloaded millions of times from both Apple and Google's app stores by customers across the Middle East, Europe, Asia, Africa and North America in the few months since its launch. Citing unnamed U.S. intelligence sources, the report claimed the app had been used to track its users' "every conversation, movement, relationship, appointment, sound, and image." At the time of the app's removal, Google said the app had violated unspecified Google Play policies. The app had over 10 million installs by then, app intelligence firm Sensor Tower says. In January, ToTok's website announced the app was again available for download. The updated version submitted to Google Play included a new dialog that requested authorization to access and sync users' contact list, Vice reported. Oddly, this updated version of ToTok never ranked on Google Play's charts again.' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/20/02/17/2136251 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/

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Bug In WordPress Plugin Can Let Hackers Wipe Up To 200,000 Sites
by Peter Reutemann 18 Feb '20

18 Feb '20

'WordPress site owners who use commercial themes provided by ThemeGrill are advised to update one of the plugins that come installed with these themes in order to patch a critical bug that can let attackers wipe their sites. The vulnerability resides in ThemeGrill Demo Importer, a plugin that ships with themes sold by ThemeGrill, a web development company that sells commercial WordPress themes. The plugin, which is installed on more than 200,000 sites, allows site owners to import demo content inside their ThemeGrill themes so they'll have examples and a starting point on which they can build their own sites. However, in a report published yesterday, WordPress security firm WebARX says that older versions of the ThemeGrill Demo Importer are vulnerable to remote attacks from unauthenticated attackers. Remote hackers can send a specially crafted payload to vulnerable sites and trigger a function inside the plugin. The vulnerable function resets the site's content to zero, effectively wiping the content of all WordPress sites where a ThemeGrill theme is active, and the vulnerable plugin is installed. Furthermore, if the site's database contains a user named "admin," then the attacker is granted access to that user with full administrator rights over the site.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/20/02/17/2111235 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/

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Linux distro review: Intel’s own Clear Linux OS
by Peter Reutemann 18 Feb '20

18 Feb '20

'Intel's Clear Linux distribution has been getting a lot of attention lately, due to its incongruously high benchmark performance. Although the distribution was created and is managed by Intel, even AMD recommends running benchmarks of its new CPUs under Clear Linux in order to get the highest scores. Recently at Phoronix, Michael Larabel tested a Threadripper 3990X system using nine different Linux distros, one of which was Clear Linux—and Intel's distribution got three times as many first-place results as any other distro tested. When attempting to conglomerate all test results into a single geometric mean, Larabel found that the distribution's results were, on average, 14% faster than the slowest distributions tested (CentOS 8 and Ubuntu 18.04.3). There's not much question that Clear Linux is your best bet if you want to turn in the best possible benchmark numbers. The question not addressed here is, what's it like to run Clear Linux as a daily driver? We were curious, so we took it for a spin.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/02/linux-distro-review-intels-own-clea… 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/

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Samsung's Changes To Android Are Making Its Phones Less Secure, Says Google
by Peter Reutemann 18 Feb '20

18 Feb '20

'Google scolded Samsung this week for an issue discovered on the Korean phone maker's Galaxy A50. From a report: Google says Samsung made "unnecessary changes to Android's core kernel," adding the changes Samsung made threaten rather than strengthen the phone's security. The tech giant has a vested interest in making sure Android is secure for OEMs and end users alike. Earlier this week Google announced it has made measurable efforts to limit malicious apps on its Google Play Store and it's clamping down on the permissions apps can request, resulting in a 98% reduction in requests for access to user's call history and text messages. It's also been tackling more worrying bugs, like self-reinstalling ones. But in this instance, it's a hardware partner that's causing the problems. In a detailed blog post from Google's Project Zero Team, researcher Jann Honn outlines the exact issue with Samsung's changes to the Android kernel on the A50. Samsung's changes included a security feature to restrict an attacker from reading or modifying user data, but Honn says the move is "futile" and rather than bolstering security, it introduces vulnerabilities that could increase an attacker's ability to arbitrarily execute code.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/02/17/1656204 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/

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meeting next Monday
by Peter Reutemann 17 Feb '20

17 Feb '20

Hi everyone We have a WLUG meeting next Monday: "Michael Cree will demo his Pinebook Pro and talk about his experiences with it, as well as challenges that he has (or still has to) overcome." Details: https://www.meetup.com/WaikatoLinuxUsersGroup/events/266791995/ https://gettogether.community/events/3275/wlug-meeting/ 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 2

Alternative Browser 'Waterfox' Acquired By System1
by Peter Reutemann 17 Feb '20

17 Feb '20

'Waterfox is an open-source web browser for x64, ARM64, and PPC64LE systems, "intended to be speedy and ethical, and maintain support for legacy extensions dropped by Firefox, from which it is forked," according to Wikipedia. (Its tabs also still have angled sides with rounded corners.) Friday Waterfox's original creator, 24-year-old Alexandros Kontos, announced that the browser "now has funding and a development team, so Waterfox can finally start to grow!" after its acquisition by a company called System1. I started Waterfox when I was 16. It was a way for me to understand how large software projects worked and the Mozilla documentation was a great introduction... I've touted Waterfox as an ethical and privacy friendly browser... I never wanted Waterfox to be a part of the hyper-privacy community. It would just feel like standards that would be impossible to uphold, especially for something such as a web browser on the internet. Throughout the years people have always asked about Waterfox and privacy, and if they've ever wanted more than it can afford, I've always pushed them to use Tor. Waterfox was here for customisations and speed, with a good level of privacy... I wasn't doing anything with Waterfox except developing it and making some money via search. Why I kept going throughout the years, I'll never know... System1 has been to Waterfox a search syndication partner. Essentially a way to have a search engine partnership (such as Bing) is through them, because companies such as Microsoft are too big and too busy to talk to small players such as Waterfox... It's probably the one easy way a browser can make money without doing anything dodgy, and it's a way I've been happy to do it without having to compromise Waterfox (and will be the same way System1 makes money from Waterfox -- nothing else). People also don't seem to understand what System1 does... "Now I can finally focus on making Waterfox into a viable alternative to the big browsers," Kontos concludes. Long-time Slashdot reader Freshly Exhumed contextualized the news with this brief history of the alternate browser ecosystem: As the usage share of web browsers continues to show a lopsideded dominance by Google Chrome, many previously-independent browsers have fallen by the wayside or have been reinvented as Chrome variants (i.e. Opera, Edge, Brave). Apple forges on with its Safari browser while other, smaller projects tend to be quite limited for multi-platform users, such as Dolphin and Bromite. Mozilla continues independently with Firefox for almost every platform, while variants such as Pale Moon and Sea Monkey have attempted to provide products that avoid drastic and/or controversial changes made by Mozilla but sometimes do not match the multi-platform support of Firefox. Let us not forget Tor, the Firefox-based anonymity-focused browser. Alex Kontos is a developer who attempted to provide continuity with dropped Firefox capabilities in his multi-platform Waterfox browser, proudly declaring that Firefox's user data sharing and telemetry collection was not included. For that privacy focus a certain popularity of Waterfox occurred. Now Kontos has revealed that his Waterfox project has been sold to System1, a company describing itself as "a consumer internet and applications company with the most powerful audience expansion platform in the industry." ' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/02/16/2146256 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/

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Google Chrome Will Soon Start Blocking Insecure Downloads
by Peter Reutemann 17 Feb '20

17 Feb '20

'"Google has revealed plans to initially warn Chrome users about 'insecure' downloads and eventually block them outright," reports The Verge. The warnings will begin in April: "Today we're announcing that Chrome will gradually ensure that secure (HTTPS) pages only download secure files," Joe DeBlasio of the Chrome security team wrote in a blog post. "Insecurely-downloaded files are a risk to users' security and privacy. For instance, insecurely-downloaded programs can be swapped out for malware by attackers, and eavesdroppers can read users' insecurely-downloaded bank statements." Beginning with Chrome 82, due for release in April, Chrome will warn users if they're about to download mixed content executables from a secure website. Then, when version 83 is released, those executable downloads will be blocked and the warning will be applied to archive files. PDFs and .doc files will get the warning in Chrome 84, with audio, images, text, and video files displaying it by version 85. Finally, all mixed content downloads — a non-secure file coming from a secure site — will be blocked as of the release of Chrome 86. Right now, Google is estimating an October release for that build of the popular web browsing.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/02/16/1926231 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/

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Do We Need To Talk About 'Cloud Neutrality'?
by Peter Reutemann 17 Feb '20

17 Feb '20

'"A multibillion-dollar, privately-owned infrastructure is now essential to the modern internet economy," writes Wired. And if you care about net neutrality, "That should freak you out." [T]here's an even bigger issue brewing, and it's time to start talking about it: cloud neutrality. "While its name sounds soft and fluffy," Microsoft president and general counsel Brad Smith and coauthor Carol Ann Browne write in their recent book, Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age, "in truth the cloud is a fortress...." Each data center costs hundreds of millions of dollars to build and many millions more to maintain; and you pretty much can't build a successful new company without them. So, thank goodness for Microsoft, right? The book means to portray this might and power as both a source of wonder and an enabling feature of the modern economy. To me, it reads like a threat. The cloud economy exists at the pleasure, and continued profit, of a handful of companies. The internet is no longer the essential enabler of the tech economy. That title now belongs to the cloud. But the infrastructure of the internet, at least, was publicly financed and subsidized. The government can set rules about how companies have to interact with their customers. Whether and how it sets and enforces those rules isn't the point, for now. It can. That's not the case with the cloud. This infrastructure is solely owned by a handful of companies with hardly any oversight. [Besides Microsoft, the article also notes Google and Amazon.] The potential for abuse is huge, whether it's through trade-secret snooping or the outright blocking, slowing, or hampering of transmission. No one seems to be thinking about what could happen if these behemoths decide it's against their interests to have all these barnacles on their flanks. They should be. Cloud companies "are essentially incubating and hosting their competition..." the article points out. "The problem is that few have the resources to replicate the cloud infrastructure, should the landlords suddenly turn on their tenants."' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/02/16/1847204 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

OpenPower Foundation Releases a Friendly EULA For IBM's Power ISA RISC
by Peter Reutemann 17 Feb '20

17 Feb '20

'Michael Larabel, of Phoronix, writes that the OpenPower Foundation has released a license agreement for Hardware Vendors to implement the Power ISA RISC instruction set in their processors. Hugh Blemings, the Director of OpenPower, was responsible for ensuring that the EULA is favourable and friendly towards Libre and Open Hardware projects and businesses. Of particular interest is that IBM's massive patent portfolio is automatically granted, royalty-free as long as two conditions apply: firstly, the hardware must be fully and properly Power ISA compliant, and secondly, the implementor must not "try it on" as a patent troll. Innovation in the RISC space just got a little more interesting. "Amidst the fully free and open RISC-V ISA making headway into the computing market, and ARM feeling pressured to loosen up its licensing, it seems they figured that it's best to join the party early," argues Hackaday.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/02/16/1743222 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/

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Firefox, Wordpress Move to Support Lazy Loading of Images and iFrames
by Peter Reutemann 17 Feb '20

17 Feb '20

'"Lazy Loading" would augment HTML's <img> tag (and <iframe> tag) with two new attributes -- "eager" (to load immediately) and "lazy" (to load only when it becomes relevant in the viewport). Felix Arntz, a developer programs engineer at Google (and a WordPress core committer) notes the updates in the HTML specification for the lazy loading attributes, adding that it's "already supported by several browsers, including Chrome and Edge" and also the Android browser and Opera. And lazy loading can now also be toggled on for Firefox 75 Nightly users, reports Neowin, though it's disabled by default: It's not clear if it will be enabled by the time Firefox 75 reaches the stable branch but according to comments on the Bugzilla thread, it's in high demand. Previously, websites could employ lazy loading by using JavaScript but now lazy loading syntax is supported directly in the web browser. The implementation in Firefox comes after Google added the feature to its browser. Google's Arntz has also written a post describing a proposal to begin lazy-loading images by default in Wordpress. The proposed solution is available as a feature plugin WP Lazy Loading in the plugin repository. The plugin is being developed on GitHub. Your testing and feedback will be much appreciated.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/02/16/0229240 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/

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FSF Sends Microsoft A Blank Hard Drive For Sending Back The Windows 7 Source Code
by Peter Reutemann 16 Feb '20

16 Feb '20

'The Free Software Foundation sent Microsoft a hard drive for Valentine's Day -- along with a petition calling for the release of the source code for Windows 7 (which is no longer supported by Microsoft): It's as easy as copying the source code, giving it a license notice, and mailing it back to us. As the author of the most popular free software license in the world, we're ready to give them all of the help we can. All they have to do is ask. We want them to show exactly how much love they have for the "open source" software they mention in their advertising. If they really do love free software -- and we're willing to give them the benefit of the doubt -- they have the opportunity to show it to the world. We hope they're not just capitalizing on the free software development model in the most superficial and exploitative way possible: by using it as a marketing tool to fool us into thinking that they care about our freedom. Together, we've stood up for our principles. They can reject us, or ignore us, but what they cannot do is stop us. We'll go on campaigning, until all of us are free.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/02/15/0213242 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/

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Linux is Ready for the End of Time
by Peter Reutemann 16 Feb '20

16 Feb '20

'January 19, 2038 is for Linux what Y2K was for mainframe and PC computers in 2000, reports ZDNet. It's the day that the value for time "runs out of numbers" and, in the case of 32-bit Unix-based operating systems like Linux and older versions of macOS, "starts counting time with negative numbers..." "But the fixes are underway to make sure all goes well when that fatal time rolls around." nickwinlund77 shared their report: Linux developers have seen this coming for decades. So, Linux kernel developer Arnd Bergmann and others have been working on a repair. These corrections are now in the forthcoming Linux 5.6 kernel. Bergmann explained, "Linux-5.6, or my backport of the patches to 5.4, should be the first release that can serve as a base for a 32-bit system designed to run beyond year 2038." There are some caveats: - All user space must be compiled with a 64-bit time_t, which will be supported in the coming musl-1.2 and glibc-2.32 releases, along with installed kernel headers from Linux-5.6 or higher. - Applications that use the system call interfaces directly need to be ported to use the time64 syscalls added in Linux-5.1 in place of the existing system calls. - Applications that use a private copy of kernel uapi header files or their contents may need to update to the Linux-5.6 version. - A few remaining interfaces cannot be changed to pass a 64-bit time_t in a compatible way, so they must be configured to use CLOCK_MONOTONIC times... After we fix this, we won't have to worry about 64-bit Linux running out of seconds until 15:30:08 GMT Sunday, December 4, 29,227,702,659. Personally, I'm not going to worry about that one.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/20/02/15/0247201 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/

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Signal Is Finally Bringing Its Secure Messaging To the Masses
by Peter Reutemann 15 Feb '20

15 Feb '20

'[Cryptographer and coder known as Moxie Marlinspike] has always talked about making encrypted communications easy enough for anyone to use. The difference, today, is that Signal is finally reaching that mass audience it was always been intended for -- not just the privacy diehards, activists, and cybersecurity nerds that formed its core user base for years -- thanks in part to a concerted effort to make the app more accessible and appealing to the mainstream. That new phase in Signal's evolution began two years ago this month. That's when WhatsApp cofounder Brian Acton, a few months removed from leaving the app he built amid post-acquisition clashes with Facebook management, injected $50 million into Marlinspike's end-to-end encrypted messaging project. Acton also joined the newly created Signal Foundation as executive chairman. The pairing up made sense; WhatsApp had used Signal's open source protocol to encrypt all WhatsApp communications end-to-end by default, and Acton had grown disaffected with what he saw as Facebook's attempts to erode WhatsApp's privacy. Since then, Marlinspike's nonprofit has put Acton's millions -- and his experience building an app with billions of users -- to work. After years of scraping by with just three overworked full-time staffers, the Signal Foundation now has 20 employees. For years a bare-bones texting and calling app, Signal has increasingly become a fully featured, mainstream communications platform. With its new coding muscle, it has rolled out features at a breakneck speed: In just the last three months, Signal has added support for iPad, ephemeral images and video designed to disappear after a single viewing, downloadable customizable "stickers," and emoji reactions. More significantly, it announced plans to roll out a new system for group messaging, and an experimental method for storing encrypted contacts in the cloud. Many of those features might sound trivial. They certainly aren't the sort that appealed to Signal's earliest core users. Instead, they're what Acton calls "enrichment features." They're designed to attract normal people who want a messaging app as multifunctional as WhatsApp, iMessage, or Facebook Messenger but still value Signal's widely trusted security and the fact that it collects virtually no user data. Wired explains how adding simple-sounding enhancements can require significant feats of security engineering to fit within Signal's privacy constraints. Adding downloadable customizable stickers, for example, "required designing a system where every sticker 'pack' is encrypted with a 'pack key,'" reports Wired. "That key is itself encrypted and shared from one user to another when someone wants to install new stickers on their phone, so that Signal's server can never see decrypted stickers or even identify the Signal user who created or sent them." For Signal's new group messaging, Signal partnered with Microsoft Research to invent a novel form of "anonymous credentials" that let a server gatekeep who belongs in a group, but without ever learning the members' identities.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/20/02/14/2216214 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/

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UK West Midlands Police Warn Against Evils Of Kali Linux
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 15 Feb '20

15 Feb '20

A poster was recently issued <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/02/14/silly_police_infosec_parental_advi…> by the West Midlands Regional Organised Crime Unit, also bearing the logo of the National Crime Agency, warning parents to watch out for certain signs of delinquency on their children’s computer, such as use of virtual machines, Kali Linux, Discord and various other things. The NCA have disavowed any knowledge of the poster.

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An Old Android Virus is Reinstalling Itself Even After Factory Resets
by Peter Reutemann 14 Feb '20

14 Feb '20

'A particularly persistent malware infection has been spreading amongst Android phones -- and removing it only seems to bring it back with a vengeance. From a report: The Trojan xHelper, which Malwarebytes first wrote about last year, is reportedly re-spawning on devices where it's already been removed. If virus-removal software doesn't take care of a nasty infection, a hard reset will usually do the trick. But users report that even a full factory reset of an infected device doesn't wipe xHelper out completely. Within an hour the malware is usually back and ready to wreak havoc.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/20/02/13/1745252 The above news article has a link on how to remove it. 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/

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500 Chrome Extensions Secretly Uploaded Private Data From Millions of Users
by Peter Reutemann 14 Feb '20

14 Feb '20

'More than 500 browser extensions downloaded millions of times from Google's Chrome Web Store surreptitiously uploaded private browsing data to attacker-controlled servers, researchers said on Thursday. Ars Technica reports: The extensions were part of a long-running malvertising and ad-fraud scheme that was discovered by independent researcher Jamila Kaya. She and researchers from Cisco-owned Duo Security eventually identified 71 Chrome Web Store extensions that had more than 1.7 million installations. After the researchers privately reported their findings to Google, the company identified more than 430 additional extensions. Google has since removed all known extensions. "In the case reported here, the Chrome extension creators had specifically made extensions that obfuscated the underlying advertising functionality from users," Kaya and Duo Security Jacob Rickerd wrote in a report. "This was done in order to connect the browser clients to a command and control architecture, exfiltrate private browsing data without the users' knowledge, expose the user to risk of exploit through advertising streams, and attempt to evade the Chrome Web Store's fraud detection mechanisms." The extensions were mostly presented as tools that provided various promotion- and advertising-as-a service utilities. In fact, they engaged in ad fraud and malvertising by shuffling infected browsers through a maze of sketchy domains. Each plugin first connected to a domain that used the same name as the plugin (e.g.: Mapstrek[.]com or ArcadeYum[.]com) to check for instructions on whether to uninstall themselves. The plugins then redirected browsers to one of a handful of hard-coded control servers to receive additional instructions, locations to upload data, advertisement feed lists, and domains for future redirects. Infected browsers then uploaded user data, updated plugin configurations, and flowed through a stream of site redirections. The researchers say the campaign dates back to at least January 2019, but it's possible that the operators were active "as early as 2017."' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/20/02/13/2355237 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/

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Microsoft Announces Windows 10X
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 13 Feb '20

13 Feb '20

A report <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/02/12/microsoft_previews_windows_10x/> on major new changes coming to the architecture of Microsoft Windows. This includes locking up all Win32 apps, that is to say the majority of Windows apps (now considered “legacy”), in a sandbox where they are strictly limited in what they can do to your OS, and even your documents. Access by the user to these apps is constrained through a channel very similar to RDP, which is normally only used for remote access. Interesting to see that, in 2020, Microsoft is still battling “OS rot”, which computer humourist Verity Stob was making fun of nearly two decades ago.

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