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Calibre Replacement Considerations
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 17 Oct '19

17 Oct '19

This blog post <https://anarc.at/software/desktop/calibre/> popped up in my screensaver display a few minutes ago, and was interesting enough for me to find the original. Calibre is the well-known software package for viewing and managing ebooks and converting between formats. As the blog writer says: It's used by Linux geeks as well as Windows power-users and vastly surpasses any native app shipped by ebook manufacturers. I know almost exactly zero people that have an ebook reader that do *not* use Calibre. However, there seem to be quite a few problems with it, not the least of which is that the principal developer seems to have trouble appreciating security vulnerabilities. Another issue is that it is written in Python 2 (though an in-progress port to Python 3 seems to be mostly “going well”). At one point the developer claimed that wasn’t a big deal, as he could continue to maintain Python 2 himself after it became obsolete upstream, but he seems to have backtracked from that position. One pressing problem is that newer versions of Calibre depend on Python 2 libraries that are no longer available in Debian (and therefore would also disappear from all the usual Debian derivatives, like Ubuntu and Linux Mint). However, the list of useful functions that Calibre performs is remarkably long, so finding substitutes for them all is going to be rather daunting.

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In 2019, multiple open source companies changed course—is it the right move?
by Peter Reutemann 17 Oct '19

17 Oct '19

'Free and open source software enables the world as we know it in 2019. From Web servers to kiosks to the big data algorithms mining your Facebook feed, nearly every computer system you interact with runs, at least in part, on free software. And in the larger tech industry, free software has given rise to a galaxy of startups and enabled the largest software acquisition in the history of the world. Free software is a gift, a gift that made the world as we know it possible. And from the start, it seemed like an astounding gift to give. So astounding in fact that it initially made businesses unaccustomed to this kind of generosity uncomfortable. These companies weren't unwilling to use free software, it was simply too radical and by extension too political. It had to be renamed: "open source." Once that happened, open source software took over the world. Recently, though, there's been a disturbance in the open source force. Within the last year, companies like Redis Labs, MongoDB, and Confluent all changed their software licenses, moving away from open source licenses to more restrictive terms that limit what can be done with the software, making it no longer open source software. The problem, argue Redis Labs, MongoDB and others, is a more modern tech trend: hosted software services. Also known as, "the cloud." Also known as Amazon AWS. Amazon, for its part, came out swinging, releasing its own version of the code behind Elastic Search this spring in response to licensing changes at Elastic (the company behind Elastic Search). And besides a new trademark dispute over Amazon's naming convention, Elastic has a very different response from that of MongoDB and Redis—it hasn't said a word in protest.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/10/is-the-software-worl… 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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Hard drives
by john 17 Oct '19

17 Oct '19

I sent this yesterday with four screenshots not aware that I may incur the wrath of the moderator. Here is a copy of the e-mail minus the pretty pictures. My neighbor just gave me a couple of failed Sea-gate hard drives to test I put them (one at a time) into my Linux mint machine. They showed up in my computer but would not mount.(see attachments) I ran the "Disks" utility which reported exactly the same problem (one incident of over temperature) for both disks However it stated that the disks were OK. One disk has 500GB of movies and TV series The other 375GB Operas and areas. The disks were used by a Mother and Son on two laptops and were cross pollinated between the two. I doubt that forcing a mount would reap a reward in this case. If any one can help with this it would be neat. Cheers John..

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Interview With Fedora Project Leader Matthew Miller On 15 Years of Fedora
by Peter Reutemann 17 Oct '19

17 Oct '19

'Fedora -- as a Linux distribution -- will celebrate the 15th anniversary of its first release in November, though its technical lineage is much older, as Fedora Core 1 was created following the discontinuation of Red Hat Linux 9 in favor of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Five years after the start of Fedora.next, the distribution is on the right track -- stability has improved, and work on minimizing hard dependencies in packages and containers, including more audio/video codecs by default, flicker-free boot, and lowering power consumption for notebooks, among other changes, have greatly improved the Fedora experience, while improvements in upstream projects such as GNOME and KDE have likewise improved the desktop experience. In a wide-ranging interview with TechRepublic, Fedora project leader Matthew Miller discussed lessons learned from the past, popular adoption and competing standards for software containers, potential changes coming to Fedora, as well as hot-button topics, including systemd.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/19/10/16/1712207 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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meetup.com: members will pay soon
by Peter Reutemann 16 Oct '19

16 Oct '19

Hi everyone Came across this news item from meetup.com: https://www.meetup.com/lp/paymentchanges Members will soon get charged USD 2 per month for using meetup.com. So far, it was only the organizers that had to cough up money. The idea is to lower costs for organizers and ensure that people RSVPing actually show up. I'll put this as topic for the upcoming AGM. In the meantime, we should start looking for alternatives. E.g.: https://alternativeto.net/software/meetup/ Personally, I like GetTogether (https://gettogether.community/) 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’s AMD-CPU-Based Archer2 Supercomputer At Edinburgh Uni
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 15 Oct '19

15 Oct '19

What’s notable about this super <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/10/15/uk_archer2_supercomputer/> is that it uses AMD CPUs instead of Intel, and it is (mostly) CPU-only, with a small number of GPUs available on the side.

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Google's Auto-Delete Tools Are Practically Worthless For Privacy
by Peter Reutemann 15 Oct '19

15 Oct '19

'By default, Google collects a vast amount of data on users' behavior, including a lifelong record of web searches, locations, and YouTube views. But amid a privacy backlash and ongoing regulatory threats, the company has started to hype its recently released privacy tools, like the ability to automatically delete some of the data it collects about you -- data that helps power its $116 billion ad business. [...] In reality, these auto-delete tools accomplish little for users, even as they generate positive PR for Google. Experts say that by the time three months rolls around, Google has already extracted nearly all the potential value from users' data, and from an advertising standpoint, data becomes practically worthless when it's more than a few months old. "Anything up to one month is extremely valuable," says David Dweck, the head of paid search at digital ad firm WPromote. "Anything beyond one month, we probably weren't going to target you anyway." Dweck says that in the digital ad industry, recent activity is essential. If you start searching on Google for real estate or looking up housing values, for instance, Google might lump you into a "prospective home buyers" category for advertisers. That information becomes instantly valuable to realtors, appraisers, and lenders for ad targeting, and it could remain valuable for a while as other companies, such as painters or appliance brands, try to follow up on your home buying. Still, it's unusual for advertisers to target users based on their activity from months earlier, Dweck says.' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/19/10/15/1933230 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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Flaw In Sudo Enables Non-Privileged Users To Run Commands As Root
by Peter Reutemann 15 Oct '19

15 Oct '19

'A vulnerability has been discovered in Sudo -- one of the most important, powerful, and commonly used utilities that comes as a core command installed on almost every UNIX and Linux-based operating system. The vulnerability in question is a sudo security policy bypass issue that could allow a malicious user or a program to execute arbitrary commands as root on a targeted Linux system even when the "sudoers configuration" explicitly disallows the root access. Sudo, stands for "superuser do," is a system command that allows a user to run applications or commands with the privileges of a different user without switching environments -- most often, for running commands as the root user. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2019-14287 and discovered by Joe Vennix of Apple Information Security, is more concerning because the sudo utility has been designed to let users use their own login password to execute commands as a different user without requiring their password. What's more interesting is that this flaw can be exploited by an attacker to run commands as root just by specifying the user ID "-1" or "4294967295." That's because the function which converts user id into its username incorrectly treats -1, or its unsigned equivalent 4294967295, as 0, which is always the user ID of root user. The vulnerability affects all Sudo versions prior to the latest released version 1.8.28, which has been released today.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/19/10/14/2231235 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's Safari Browser Is Sending Some Users' IP Addresses To China's Tencent
by Peter Reutemann 14 Oct '19

14 Oct '19

'"Apple, which often positions itself as a champion of privacy and human rights, is sending some IP addresses from users of its Safari browser on iOS to Chinese conglomerate Tencent -- a company with close ties to the Chinese Communist Party," reports the Reclaim the Net blog: Apple admits that it sends some user IP addresses to Tencent in the "About Safari & Privacy" section of its Safari settings.... The "Fraudulent Website Warning" setting is toggled on by default which means that unless iPhone or iPad users dive two levels deep into their settings and toggle it off, their IP addresses may be logged by Tencent or Google when they use the Safari browser. However, doing this makes browsing sessions less secure and leaves users vulnerable to accessing fraudulent websites... Even if people install a third-party browser on their iOS device, viewing web pages inside apps still opens them in an integrated form of Safari called Safari View Controller instead of the third-party browser. Tapping links inside apps also opens them in Safari rather than a third-party browser. These behaviors that force people back into Safari make it difficult for people to avoid the Safari browser completely when using an iPhone or iPad. Engadget adds that it's "not clear" whether or not Tencent is actually collecting IP addresses from users outside of China. ("You'll see mention of the collection in the U.S. disclaimer, but that doesn't mean it's scooping up info from American web surfers.") But Reclaim the Net points out that the possibility is troubling, in part because Safari is the #1 most popular mobile internet browser in America, with a market share of over 50%.' -- source: https://apple.slashdot.org/story/19/10/14/033225 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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AGM next month
by Peter Reutemann 14 Oct '19

14 Oct '19

Hi everyone We have our AGM coming up next month, November 25th: Agenda (preliminary) • President's Report • Treasurer's Report • Election of 2020 Committee • General business • Consumption of pizza Details: https://www.meetup.com/WaikatoLinuxUsersGroup/events/257884356/ 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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