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Hope for Linux
by Ian Stewart 24 Jan '19

24 Jan '19

I am one of the volunteers that looks after the IT equipment at a community centre. The equipment includes 5 x PC's located in a room for the public to use. These PC's were originally donated with a single drive that has Windows 10. We add another drive which we make the Sata-0 drive, and move the cable for the Windows 10 drive so it is on the Sata-2 port. On the drive that we have added we install Ubuntu-Mate. By default, when the PC's power on, they boot up Ubuntu-Mate. Over the summer holidays the main users of these PC's are local children in the age range of 6 to 10 years old. I recently walked into the room which has the PC's and one of children recognised me as the IT repair man. The boy came over to me, and pointing at one of the PC's he said, "It's broken. It doesn't work." I looked across at the PC and saw that it was displaying a Windows 10 screen that appeared to be functioning OK, and noticed that there was nobody sitting using this computer. The other four PC's were running Ubuntu-Mate and children were busy using them. I said to the boy, "Yes it does look like its broken. I'll fix it." I proceeded to shutdown Windows 10, and found the Ubuntu-Mate drive had failed to the extent that it wasn't being recognised by the BIOS. I replaced the failed drive, installed Ubuntu-Mate from a USB stick, and told the boy it was fixed and he could use it again. I thought it was an encouraging sign that what these children perceive as a normal PC is one that is running Ubuntu-Mate and what they perceive as a broken PC is one that is running Windows 10. cheers, Ian

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If you installed PEAR PHP in the last 6 months, you may be infected
by Peter Reutemann 24 Jan '19

24 Jan '19

'Officials with the widely used PHP Extension and Application Repository have temporarily shut down most of their website and are urging users to inspect their systems after discovering hackers replaced the main package manager with a malicious one. “If you have downloaded this go-pear.phar [package manager] in the past six months, you should get a new copy of the same release version from GitHub (pear/pearweb_phars) and compare file hashes,” officials wrote on the site’s blog. "If different, you may have the infected file.” The officials didn’t say when the hack of their Web server occurred or precisely what the malicious version of go-pear.phar did to infected systems. Initial indications, however, look serious. For starters, the advice applies to anyone who has downloaded the package manager in the past six months. That suggests the hack may have occurred in the timeframe of last July, and no one noticed either it or the tainted download until this week.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/01/pear-php-site-breach… 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 Web Apps Can Turn Browser Extensions Into Backdoors
by Peter Reutemann 24 Jan '19

24 Jan '19

'"Threatpost has a link to some recent research about ways web pages can exploit browser extensions to steal information or write files," writes Slashdot reader jbmartin6. "Did we need another reason to be deeply suspicious of any browser extension? Not only do they spy on us for their makers, now other people can use them to spy on us as well. The academic paper is titled 'Empowering Web Applications with Browser Extensions' (PDF)." From the report: "An attacker [uses] a script that is present in a web application currently running in the user browser. The script either belongs to the web application or to a third party. The goal of the attacker is to interact with installed extensions, in order to access user sensitive information. It relies on extensions whose privileged capabilities can be exploited via an exchange of messages with scripts in the web application," researchers wrote. They added, "Even though content scripts, background pages and web applications run in separate execution contexts, they can establish communication channels to exchange messages with one another... APIs [are used] for sending and receiving (listening for) messages between the content scripts, background pages and web applications." The researcher behind the paper focused on a specific class of web extension called "WebExtensions API," a cross-browser extensions system compatible with major browsers including Chrome, Firefox, Opera and Microsoft Edge. After analyzing 78,315 extensions that used the specific WebExtension API, it found 3,996 that were suspicious. While it seems voluminous, they noted that research found a small number of vulnerable extensions overall, and that concern should be measured. However, "browser vendors need to review extensions more rigorously, in particular take into consideration the use of message passing interfaces in extensions."' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/19/01/23/2256252 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 Free Software Evangelist Richard Stallman is Haunted by Stalin's Dream
by Peter Reutemann 23 Jan '19

23 Jan '19

'Richard Stallman recently visited Mandya, a small town about 60 miles from Bengaluru, India, to give a talk. On the sidelines, Indian news outlet FactorDaily caught up with Stallman for an interview. In the wide-ranging interview, Stallman talked about companies that spy on users, popular Android apps, media streaming and transportation apps, smart devices, DRM, software backdoors, subscription software, and Apple and censorship. An excerpt from the interview: If you are carrying a mobile phone, it is always tracking your movements and it could have been modified to listen to the conversations around you. I call this product Stalin's dream. What would Stalin have wanted to hand out to every inhabitant of the former Soviet Union? Something to track that person's movements and listen to the person's conservations. Fortunately, Stalin could not do it because the technology didn't exist. Unfortunately for us, now it does exist and most people have been pressured or lured into carrying around such a Stalin's dream device, but not me. I am suspicious of new digital technology. I expect it to have new malicious functionalities. It has happened so many times that I have learned to expect this, so I have always checked before I start using some new digital technology. I asked to find out what is nasty about it and I found out these two things. It was something like 20 years ago, and I decided it was my duty as a citizen to refuse, regardless of whatever convenience it might offer me. To surrender my freedom in this way was failing to defend a free society. This is why I do not have a portable phone. I refuse to carry a portable phone. I never have one and unless things change, I never will. I do use portable phones, lots of different ones. If I needed to call someone right now, I would ask one of you, "Could you please make a call for me?" If I am on a bus and it is late and I need to tell somebody that I am going to arrive late, there is always some other passenger in the bus who will make a call for me or send a text for me. Practically speaking, it is not that hard.' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/19/01/23/1759203 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 Proposes Changes To Chromium Browser That Will Break Content-Blocking Extensions, Including Various Ad Blockers
by Peter Reutemann 23 Jan '19

23 Jan '19

'"Google engineers have proposed changes to the open-source Chromium browser that will break content-blocking extensions, including various ad blockers," reports The Register. "The drafted changes will also limit the capabilities available to extension developers, ostensibly for the sake of speed and safety. Chromium forms the central core of Google Chrome, and, soon, Microsoft Edge." From the report: In a note posted Tuesday to the Chromium bug tracker, Raymond Hill, the developer behind uBlock Origin and uMatrix, said the changes contemplated by the Manifest v3 proposal will ruin his ad and content blocking extensions, and take control of content away from users. Manifest v3 refers to the specification for browser extension manifest files, which enumerate the resources and capabilities available to browser extensions. Google's stated rationale for making the proposed changes is to improve security, privacy and performance, and supposedly to enhance user control. But one way Google would like to achieve these goals involves replacing the webRequest API with a new one, declarativeNetRequest. The webRequest API allows extensions to intercept network requests, so they can be blocked, modified, or redirected. This can cause delays in web page loading because Chrome has to wait for the extension. In the future, webRequest will only be able to read network requests, not modify them. The declarativeNetRequest allows Chrome (rather than the extension itself) to decide how to handle network requests, thereby removing a possible source of bottlenecks and a potentially useful mechanism for changing browser behavior. The report notes that Adblock Plus "should still be available" since "Google and other internet advertising networks apparently pay Adblock Plus to whitelist their online adverts." ' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/19/01/23/0048202 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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Wine 4.0 Released With Vulkan Support, Initial Direct3D 12 and Better HiDPI
by Peter Reutemann 23 Jan '19

23 Jan '19

'Michael Larabel writes via Phoronix: Wine 4.0 is now officially available as the new annual stable release to Wine for running Windows programs and games on Linux and other operating systems. Following seven weekly release candidates, Wine 4.0 was ready to ship today as judged by Wine founder Alexandre Julliard. Wine 4.0 is a big release bringing initial Vulkan graphics API support, Direct3D CSMT is enabled by default, early Direct3D 12 support via VKD3D, continued HiDPI work, various OpenGL improvements, multi-sample D3D texture support, 64-bit improvements, continued Android support, and much more.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/19/01/23/0124236 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 21 Jan '19

21 Jan '19

Hi everyone I'm using 2D animation as theme for next Monday's meeting: "Let's pool our resources and figure out/discover software that can be used for 2D animations. Open-source candidates could be GIMP (https://www.gimp.org/) and Synfig Studio (https://www.synfig.org/)" https://www.meetup.com/WaikatoLinuxUsersGroup/events/257884244/ 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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A Large Number of Top Free VPN Apps Either Have Chinese Ownership or Are Based in China
by Peter Reutemann 21 Jan '19

21 Jan '19

'William Chalk, reporting for HackerNoon: After big names like Whatsapp, Snapchat, and Facebook, VPNs are the most searched-for applications in the world. "VPN" is the second-highest non-branded search term behind "games", and free apps completely dominate the search results. The most popular applications have amassed hundreds of millions of installs between them worldwide, yet there seems to be very little attention paid to the companies behind them, and very little scrutiny done on behalf of the marketplaces hosting them. We investigated the top free VPN apps in the App Store and Google Play Store. We found that very few of these hugely popular apps do anywhere near enough to deserve the trust of those looking to protect their privacy online. We recorded the top 20 free apps in the search results for "VPN" in the App and Play Store for UK and US locales. In total, these applications have been downloaded 80 million times from Google and 4 million times each month from Apple. Our investigation discovered that over half of the top free VPN apps either have Chinese ownership or are actually based in China, which has aggressively clamped down on VPN services in recent years and maintains an iron grip on the internet within its borders. Furthermore, we found the majority of these apps have insufficient formal privacy protections and non-existent user support.' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/19/01/21/1425201 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 WordPress Plugin WPML Hacked By Angry Former Employee
by Peter Reutemann 20 Jan '19

20 Jan '19

'A very popular WordPress plugin was hacked over the weekend after a hacker defaced its website and sent a mass message to all its customers revealing the existence of supposed unpatched security holes. From a report: In a follow-up mass email, the plugin's developers blamed the hack on a former employee, who also defaced their website. The plugin in question is WPML (or WP MultiLingual), the most popular WordPress plugin for translating and serving WordPress sites in multiple languages. According to its website, WPML has over 600,000 paying customers and is one of the very few WordPress plugins that is so reputable that it doesn't need to advertise itself with a free version on the official WordPress.org plugins repository. But on Saturday, ET timezone, the plugin faced its first major security incident since its launch in 2007. The attacker, which the WPML team claims is a former employee, sent out a mass email to all the plugin's customers.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/19/01/20/2156231 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 Quest For Free/Libre Non-Linear Video Editors
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 20 Jan '19

20 Jan '19

A good summary <http://libregraphicsworld.org/blog/entry/the-quest-for-sustainable-free-lib…> of the state of various efforts to create Free Software video editor apps, covering all the ones you have likely heard of, and maybe some you haven’t.

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