- wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

Firefox To Hide Notification Popups By Default Starting Next Year
by Peter Reutemann 04 Nov '19

04 Nov '19

'In a move to fight spam and improve the health of the web, Firefox will hide those annoying notification popups by default starting next year, with the release of Firefox 72, in January 2020, ZDNet has learned from a Mozilla engineer. The move comes after Mozilla ran an experiment back in April this year to see how users interacted with notifications, and also looked at different ways of blocking notifications from being too intrusive. Usage stats showed that the vast majority (97%) of Firefox users dismissed notifications, or chose to block a website from showing notifications at all... As a result, Mozilla engineers have decided to hide the notification popup that drops down from Firefox's URL bar, starting with Firefox 72. If a website shows a notification, the popup will be hidden by default, and an icon added to the URL bar instead. Firefox will then animate the icon using a wiggle effect to let the user know there's a notification subscription popup available, but the popup won't be displayed until the user clicks the icon. Mozilla is the first browser vendor to block notification popups by default, according to the article. It's already available in Firefox Nightly versions, but will be added to the stable branch in January. "I think Mozilla's decision is good for the health of the web," Jérôme Segura, malware analyst at Malwarebytes tells ZDNet.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/19/11/03/1646236 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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Does Linux Have a Marketing Problem?
by Peter Reutemann 04 Nov '19

04 Nov '19

'On Hackaday's hosting site Hackaday.io, an electrical engineer with a background in semiconductor physics argues that Linux's small market share is due to a lack of marketing: Not only does [Linux] have dominance when raw computing ability is needed, either in a supercomputer or a webserver, but it must have some ability to effectively work as a personal computer as well, otherwise Android wouldn't be so popular on smartphones and tablets. >From there it follows that the only reason that Microsoft and Apple dominate the desktop world is because they have a marketing group behind their products, which provides customers with a comfortable customer service layer between themselves and the engineers and programmers at those companies, and also drowns out the message that Linux even exists in the personal computing realm... Part of the problem too is that Linux and most of its associated software is free and open source. What is often a strength when it comes to the quality of software and its flexibility and customizablity becomes a weakness when there's no revenue coming in to actually fund a marketing group that would be able to address this core communications issue between potential future users and the creators of the software. Canonical, Red Hat, SUSE and others all had varying successes, but this illistrates another problem: the splintered nature of open-source software causes a fragmenting not just in the software itself but the resources. Imagine if there were hundreds of different versions of macOS that all Apple users had to learn about and then decide which one was the best for their needs... I have been using Linux exclusively since I ditched XP for 5.10 Breezy Badger and would love to live in a world where I'm not forced into the corporate hellscape of a Windows environment every day for no other reason than most people already know how to use Windows. With a cohesive marketing strategy, I think this could become a reality, but it won't happen through passionate essays on "free as in freedom" or the proper way to pronounce "GNU" or the benefits of using Gentoo instead of Arch. It'll only come if someone can unify all the splintered groups around a cohesive, simple message and market it to the public.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/19/11/03/2012226 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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Incognito Mode For Google Maps Arrives On Android
by Peter Reutemann 01 Nov '19

01 Nov '19

'Incognito Mode for Google Maps is rolling out to Android users to prevent your search queries and real-time tracked location from being recorded onto your Google account. Engadget reports: It's not something you'll want to use all the time as some features will be disabled, and it's important to note that it doesn't turn off all tracking. The places you go won't be saved to your Location History (if you have that enabled), your searches won't be saved to your account and it won't use your information to personalize the experience. Still, you could be tracked by internet service providers, other apps, or if you're using Assistant and other Google services. Similar to incognito on Chrome, it's more useful as a depersonalized look at recommendations than as a full-fledged privacy protector, and a way to make sure that whatever you're searching for in this instance doesn't affect your recommendations later -- don't worry, we're not judging. ' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/19/11/01/0112223 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 Network Congestion Algorithm Isn't Fair, Researchers Say
by Peter Reutemann 01 Nov '19

01 Nov '19

'Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University say a Google algorithm designed help reduce internet congestion is mathematically unfair, resulting in network management systems that may disadvantage some traffic over others. From a report: Several years back, Google began work on a new open source congestion control algorithm (CCA) designed to improve the way the internet functions. The result was BBR, short for Bottleneck Bandwidth and RTT (Round-Trip Time). The goal of the project: to improve how network packets travel between servers to mitigate congestion on the internet. CCAs have long been used to help manage congestion -- ideally while treating all traffic equally. But in a study unveiled last week at the Internet Measurement Conference in Amsterdam, researchers revealed that BBR doesn't actually do a very good job of that last part. In fact, they found that during periods of congestion, BBR connections would take up 40 percent of the available bandwidth, leaving the remaining 60 percent to be fought over by the remaining users on the network.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/19/10/31/204226 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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Text Editor Releases 'Free Uyghur' Edition, Gets Swamped With Chinese Spam
by Peter Reutemann 01 Nov '19

01 Nov '19

Something from the Windows open-source camp rather than Linux: 'This week, the developer of the popular text- and code-editing software Notepad++ released a new version update. Nothing seemed particularly strange about it, except maybe the name: Notepad++ v7.8.1 is the "Free Uyghur" edition. In a blog post announcing the updated version, developer Don Ho writes about the plight of the Uyghur people, an ethnic minority in China that's faced persecution from the country's authoritarian government. China operates internment camps that are used to detain Uyghur people throughout the country's Xinjiang region. Since the announcement, the software's GitHub "issues" page has been bombarded with spam, much of it in the Chinese language. "Stop sending meaningless political-related issues, it just makes you look like an idiot," reads one comment. Another one simply reads, "Bye ! Uninstall." There's a litany of curses, and one asks, "What do you know about China?" Others have moved in to criticize the Chinese government in response. Ho told The Verge that the software's dedicated site was also under a distributed-denial-of-service attack, but that it has been stopped by an anti-DDoS service provided by the site's host. Ho writes in the announcement that he anticipated potential pushback, saying "talking about politics is exactly what software and commercial companies generally try to avoid," but decided to take the step anyway. "The problem is," Ho writes in the announcement of the Free Uyghur edition, "if we don't deal with politics, politics will deal with us.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/19/10/31/0037247 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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Fedora 31 Released
by Peter Reutemann 01 Nov '19

01 Nov '19

'Fedora 31 has just rolled out the door. From a report: Is it an exciting release? No, not really. Sure, enthusiasts will find themselves thrilled withe inclusion of the GNOME 3.34 desktop environment (with Qt Wayland by default), Linux 5.3 kernel, and Mesa 9.2, but otherwise, it is fairly boring. You know what? That's not a bad thing. In 2019, Fedora is simply a mature and stable operating system that only needs to follow an evolutionary path at this time -- not revolutionary. It stands alone as the world's best desktop Linux distribution. "Fedora 31 Workstation provides new tools and features for general users as well as developers with the inclusion of GNOME 3.34. GNOME 3.34 brings significant performance enhancements which will be especially noticeable on lower-powered hardware. Fedora 31 Workstation also expands the default uses of Wayland, including allowing Firefox to run natively on Wayland under GNOME instead of the XWayland backend as with prior releases," says The Fedora Project.' -- sources: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/19/10/31/168259 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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Appeal
by john 30 Oct '19

30 Oct '19

Western community center has recently had all the computers upgraded. However there are ten machines but only five working mouse (mice?) I would find the job easier if there a couple of five port switches available. If any one feels they can help with either or both of these please contact me (can travel) Cheers John..

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New 'Unremovable' XHelper Malware Has Infected 45,000 Android Devices
by Peter Reutemann 30 Oct '19

30 Oct '19

'Over the past six months, a new Android malware strain has made a name for itself after popping up on the radar of several antivirus companies, and annoying users thanks to a self-reinstall mechanism that has made it near impossible to remove. Named xHelper, this malware was first spotted back in March but slowly expanded to infect more than 32,000 devices by August (per Malwarebytes), eventually reaching a total of 45,000 infections this month (per Symantec). The malware is on a clear upward trajectory. Symantec says the xHelper crew is making on average 131 new victims per day and around 2,400 new victims per month. Most of these infections have been spotted in India, the U.S., and Russia. According to Malwarebytes, the source of these infections is "web redirects" that send users to web pages hosting Android apps. These sites instruct users on how to side-load unofficial Android apps from outside the Play Store. Code hidden in these apps downloads the xHelper trojan. The good news is that the trojan doesn't carry out destructive operations. According to both Malwarebytes and Symantec, for most of its operational lifespan, the trojan has shown intrusive popup ads and notification spam. The ads and notifications redirect users to the Play Store, where victims are asked to install other apps -- a means through which the xHelper gang is making money from pay-per-install commissions. What's interesting about xHelper is that it gains access to an Android device via an initial app and installs itself as a separate self-standing service. Furthermore, you can't remove the app, as the trojan reinstalls itself every time, even after users perform a factory reset.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/19/10/29/2121244 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 a months-old AMD microcode bug destroyed my weekend [UPDATED]
by Peter Reutemann 30 Oct '19

30 Oct '19

'This weekend, I was excited to deploy my first Ryzen 3000-powered workstation in my home office. Unfortunately, a microcode bug—originally discovered in July but still floating around in large numbers in the wild—wrecked my good time. I eventually got my Ryzen 3700X system working, and it's definitely fast. But unfortunately, it's still bugged, and there's no easy way to fix it. Not long after the product launch, AMD Ryzen 3000 customers started noticing problems with their shiny new CPUs. Windows users couldn't successfully launch Destiny 2 (due to a power-management bug, unrelated to the one sidelining my system), and Linux users in many cases couldn't even get their system to boot. Jason Evangelho covered the initial discovery and report of the bug at Forbes back in July, and an AMD representative provided him with a statement by email: "AMD has identified the root cause and implemented a BIOS fix for an issue impacting the ability to run certain Linux distributions and Destiny 2 on Ryzen 3000 processors. We have distributed an updated BIOS to our motherboard partners, and we expect consumers to have access to the new BIOS over the coming days." This sounds happy and upbeat, but the reality isn't quite so simple. When there's a bug in the CPU microcode, you're at the mercy of your motherboard vendor to release a new system BIOS that will update it for you—you can't just go to some download link at AMD and apply a fix yourself. AMD responded to the bug in July. As far as I can tell, AMD did so only by direct email response; there's no press release about it—and the company's response made it sound like everything would be fixed in a week or two. I have the unfortunate duty of reporting to you, three months later, that it is not.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/10/how-a-months-old-amd-microcode-bug-… 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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50 Years Ago, the Internet Was Born In Room 3420
by Peter Reutemann 30 Oct '19

30 Oct '19

'On October 29, 1969, a graduate student in a UCLA computer science lab logged into a computer hundreds of miles away at the Stanford Research Institute. It was the first connection via ARPANET, which -- after 20 years as a government and academic network -- evolved into the modern internet. Over at Fast Company, Mark Sullivan marked the anniversary by visiting the room where the historic login took place and talking to three of the people who made it happen.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/19/10/29/1557212 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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Patent Troll Versus GNOME Foundation
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 29 Oct '19

29 Oct '19

An entity named Rothschild Patent Imaging (RPI) is claiming that the GNOME Shotwell app is infringing a patent it holds <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/10/22/gnome_linux_lausuit/>. The GNOME Foundation is not settling, instead it is fighting back to try to get the patent invalidated and RPI to pay its legal fees.

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BBC News Launches 'Dark Web' Tor Mirror
by Peter Reutemann 25 Oct '19

25 Oct '19

'The BBC has made its international news website available via the Tor network, in a bid to thwart censorship attempts. The browser can obscure who is using it and what data is being accessed, which can help people avoid government surveillance and censorship. Countries including China, Iran and Vietnam are among those who have tried to block access to the BBC News website or programs. Instead of visiting bbc.co.uk/news or bbc.com/news, users of the Tor browser can visit the new bbcnewsv2vjtpsuy.onion web address. Clicking this web address will not work in a regular web browser.' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/19/10/24/213258 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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Chrome 78 Arrives With New APIs, Dark Mode Improvements On Android and iOS
by Peter Reutemann 23 Oct '19

23 Oct '19

'Google today launched Chrome 78 for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and iOS. The release includes the CSS Properties and Values API, Native File System API, new Origin Trials, and dark mode improvements on Android and iOS. You can update to the latest version now using Chrome's built-in updater or download it directly from google.com/chrome. 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 often have to stay on top of everything available -- as well as what has been deprecated or removed. Chrome 78, for example, removes the XSS Auditor due to privacy concerns. Chrome 78 implements the CSS Properties and Values API to let developers register variables as full custom properties. There's a new Native File System API that lets developers build web apps that interact with files on the user's local device. Chrome 78 adds to the Original Trials introduced in Chrome 77, such as Signed Exchanges and SMS Receiver API. "The former allow a distributor to provide content signed by a publisher," reports VentureBeat. "The latter allows websites to access SMS messages that are delivered to the user's phone." Other features that are rolling out gradually include the ability to be able to highlight and right-click a phone number link in Chrome and forward the call to their Android device. "Some users might also see an option to share their clipboard content between their computers and Android devices," adds VentureBeat. "Chrome is also getting Google Drive integration. From Chrome's address bar, you will be able to search for Google Drive files that you have access to." ' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/19/10/22/224233 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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An Interview With Former Purism CTO Zlatan Todoric Hints At Chaos At Purism
by Peter Reutemann 23 Oct '19

23 Oct '19

'Phoronix published an interview with former Purism CTO Zlatan Todoric who left Purism in September 2018. The story hints quite strongly at chaotic situations over at Purism. He started at the company in 2015, when it was a small outfit, and steered it into the bigger company that it is now. To him the smartphone development for the Librem 5 was a mistake and way too early. He has high hopes for the Pinephone, who according to him are doing things right. The first "Aspen" batch of the Purism Librem 5 are supposed to be shipping, though seemingly only people related to Purism are showing off their devices.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/19/10/22/2152232 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 70 Arrives With Social Tracking Blocked By Default
by Peter Reutemann 23 Oct '19

23 Oct '19

'Mozilla today launched Firefox 70 for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and iOS. Firefox 70 includes social tracking protection, a Privacy Protections report, new Lockwise features, and performance improvements on Windows and macOS. Firefox 70 for desktop is available for download now on Firefox.com, and all existing users should be able to upgrade to it automatically. The Android version is trickling out slowly on Google Play and the iOS version is on Apple's App Store. According to Mozilla, Firefox has about 250 million active users, making it a major platform for web developers to consider. With Firefox 70, Mozilla now also includes social tracking protection under the Standard setting. It blocks cross-site tracking cookies from sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/19/10/22/1610219 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 To Get Page Translation Feature, Like Chrome
by Peter Reutemann 23 Oct '19

23 Oct '19

'Mozilla developers are working on adding an automatic page translation feature to Firefox, similar to the one included in Google Chrome. However, Firefox's page translation feature will be different from the one supported in Google Chrome. Instead of relying on cloud-based text translation services (like Google Translate, Bing Translator, or Yandex.Translate), Firefox will use a client-side, machine learning-based translation library, currently being developed part of the Bergamot Project, which received $3.35 million in EU funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/19/10/22/1712239 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/

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Disney+ Does Not Work On Linux Devices
by Peter Reutemann 22 Oct '19

22 Oct '19

'If you plan on streaming content from the new Disney+ streaming service on Linux devices, you'll likely be greeted with Error Code 83. Fedora Linux package maintainer Hans De Goede from the Netherlands first made the unpleasant discovery. gHacks reports: De Goede noticed that Disney+ would not work in any of the web browsers that he tried on systems running Fedora Linux. He tried Firefox and Chrome, and both times Disney+ threw the error "error code 83." Disney+ Support was not able to assist de Goede. It replied with a generic message stating that the error was known and that it happened often when customers tried to play Disney+ in web browsers or using certain devices. Support recommended to use the official applications on phones or tablets to watch the shows or movies. Other streaming services, e.g. Netflix, work fine on Linux. A user on the Dutch site Tweakers dug deeper and uncovered the response code that the site returned when a device or browser was used that could not be used to play streams. According to the information, error code 83 means that the platform verification status is incompatible with the security level. Disney uses the DRM solution Widevine to protect its streams from unauthorized activity. Widevine supports three different security levels, called 1, 2 and 3, which have certain requirements. The supported level determines the maximum stream quality and may even prevent access to a stream if the requirements are not met. It appears that Disney set Widevine to a more restrictive level than its competitors. The decision affects Disney+ on Linux devices and on other devices that don't support the selected Widevine security standard. ' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/19/10/21/2128213 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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Remember Sure-Fi? Lostik is open standards Lora you can play with
by Peter Reutemann 22 Oct '19

22 Oct '19

'A lot of readers commented on our earlier report on Sure-Fi long-range, low-bandwidth RF chirp communicators that we should test generic Lora gear. Lora is the open standard that Sure-Fi began with and built on top of, and it's available in a variety of inexpensive kits. Most of those kits are aimed at low-level maker-style integration with IoT gear like Arduino, but I found a couple of preassembled kits with generic USB interfaces suitable for use with regular x86 computers. One of those, Lostik, had consistently better user reviews and glowingly boasted of its "extensive documentation," so we picked a pair up for $46 apiece and got to testing. We should be clear about one thing up front—nobody should claim that any Lora device has "extensive documentation" with a straight face. Lostik seems to have more documentation than any of its competitors, but figuring out exactly what it would do felt like learning to play pirated video games in the 1980s. What we eventually discovered was that Lora devices are sort of like dial-up modems all connected to a single party line—they run on serial interfaces over which they can be issued commands and can send or receive data. It's possible to use a generic terminal emulator (at 57,600bps, 8 data bits, 1 stop bit, and no parity) to communicate directly with Lostik, but you'll need to understand its commands—analogous to the Hayes AT modem commands of yore—if you do. That was a bridge too far for us, so we said the heck with it and just lightly modified the ./sender.py and ./receiver.py sample scripts from Lostik's Github repository and used them for some simple range testing. These scripts don't require (or offer) any kind of authentication or pairing; any Lora device running receiver.py will successfully receive data from any Lora device running sender.py within its effective range.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/10/lostik-usb-lora-radios/ 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 Service NordVPN Says it Was Hacked
by Peter Reutemann 22 Oct '19

22 Oct '19

'NordVPN, a virtual private network provider that promises to "protect your privacy online," has confirmed it was hacked. From a report: The admission comes following rumors that the company had been breached. It first emerged that NordVPN had an expired internal private keys exposed, potentially allowing anyone to spin out their own servers imitating NordVPN. For its part, NordVPN has claimed a "zero logs" policy. "We don't track, collect, or share your private data," the company says. But the breach is likely to cause alarm that hackers may have been in a position to access some user data. NordVPN told TechCrunch that one of its datacenters was accessed in March 2018. "One of the datacenters in Finland we are renting our servers from was accessed with no authorization," said NordVPN spokesperson Laura Tyrell. The attacker gained access to the server -- which had been active for about a month -- by exploiting an insecure remote management system left by the datacenter provider, which NordVPN said it was unaware that such a system existed.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/19/10/21/1447208 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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Avast Says Hackers Breached Internal Network Through Compromised VPN Profile
by Peter Reutemann 22 Oct '19

22 Oct '19

'Czech cyber-security software maker Avast disclosed today a security breach that impacted its internal network. In a statement published today, the company said it believed the attack's purpose was to insert malware into the CCleaner software, similar to the infamous CCleaner 2017 incident. Avast said the breach occurred because the attacker compromised an employee's VPN credentials, gaining access to an account that was not protected using a multi-factor authentication solution. The intrusion was detected on September 23, but Avast said it found evidence of the attacker targeting its infrastructure going as far back as May 14, this year. The identity of the attacker is currently unknown, but the company said hackers didn't manage to modify CCleaner downloads this time aroun' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/19/10/21/187216 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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Visiting New Zealand
by Aaron 21 Oct '19

21 Oct '19

I am a longtime Linux developer and will be staying with friends in Rotarua from Feb 2 through April 21. I'd love to both attend and present at a Linux User Group while I'm there. Presentation idea description: 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. I am 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, I'd 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, I 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. Please let me know if you are interested, or if you know of other active groups I should contact. Thanks, Aaron

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Researchers abuse Alexa and Google Home to eavesdrop and phish passwords
by Peter Reutemann 21 Oct '19

21 Oct '19

'By now, the privacy threats posed by Amazon Alexa and Google Home are common knowledge. Workers for both companies routinely listen to audio of users—recordings of which can be kept forever—and the sounds the devices capture can be used in criminal trials. Now, there's a new concern: malicious apps developed by third parties and hosted by Amazon or Google. The threat isn't just theoretical. Whitehat hackers at Germany's Security Research Labs developed eight apps—four Alexa "skills" and four Google Home "actions"—that all passed Amazon or Google security-vetting processes. The skills or actions posed as simple apps for checking horoscopes, with the exception of one, which masqueraded as a random-number generator. Behind the scenes, these "smart spies," as the researchers call them, surreptitiously eavesdropped on users and phished for their passwords.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/10/alexa-and-google-hom… 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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Project Trident Ditches BSD For Linux
by Peter Reutemann 21 Oct '19

21 Oct '19

'Project Trident is moving from FreeBSD to Void Linux, reports Its FOSS: According to a later post, the move was motivated by long-standing issues with FreeBSD. These issues include "hardware compatibility, communications standards, or package availability continue to limit Project Trident users". According to a conversation on Telegram, FreeBSD has just updated its build of the Telegram client and it was nine releases behind everyone else. The lead dev of Project Trident, Ken Moore, is also the main developer of the Lumina Desktop. The Lumina Desktop has been on hold for a while because the Project Trident team had to do so much work just to keep their packages updated. (Once they complete the transition to Void Linux, Ken will start working on Lumina again.) After much searching and testing, the Project Trident team decided to use Void Linux as their new base. More from the Project Trident site: It's important to reiterate that Project Trident is a distribution of an existing operating system. Project Trident has never been a stand-alone operating system. The goal of Project Trident is enhancing the usability of an operating system as a graphical workstation through all sorts of means: custom installers, automatic setup routines, graphical utilities, and more... The more we've tested Void Linux, the more impressed we have been. We look forward to working with an operating system that helps Project Trident continue to provide a stable, high-quality graphical desktop experience.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/19/10/20/2227228 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 Won't Support Linux on DeX Once Android 10 Arrives
by Peter Reutemann 21 Oct '19

21 Oct '19

'If you've been using Linux on DeX (aka Linux on Galaxy) to turn your Samsung phone into a PC, you'll need to make a change of plans. Samsung is warning users that it's shutting down the Linux on DeX beta program, and that its Android 10 update won't support using the open source OS as a desktop environment. The company didn't explain why it was shutting things down, but it did note that the Android 10 beta is already going without the Linux option... Samsung is still committed to DeX, and recently enabled its desktop-style space on Macs and Windows PCs. However, it's clear that the dreams of fully replacing a PC with your Galaxy phone will have to wait, at least for now.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/19/10/20/0051217 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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Mozilla is Sharing YouTube Horror Stories To Prod Google For More Transparency
by Peter Reutemann 21 Oct '19

21 Oct '19

'CNET reports on a new crowdsourced public awareness campaign: Mozilla is publishing anecdotes of YouTube viewing gone awry -- anonymous stories from people who say they innocently searched for one thing but eventually ended up in a dark rabbit hole of videos. It's a campaign aimed at pressuring Google's massive video site to make itself more accessible to independent researchers trying to study its algorithms. "The big problem is we have no idea what is happening on YouTube," said Guillaume Chaslot, who is a fellow at Mozilla, a nonprofit best known for its unit that makes and operates the Firefox web browser. Chaslot is an ex-Google engineer who has investigated YouTube's recommendations from the outside after he left the company in 2013. (YouTube says he was fired for performance issues.) "We can see that there are problems, but we have no idea if the problem is from people being people or from algorithms," he said.... Mozilla is publishing 28 stories it's terming #YouTubeRegrets; they include, for example, an anecdote from someone who who said a search for German folk songs ended up returning neo-Nazi clips, and a testimonial from a mother who said her 10-year-old daughter searched for tap-dancing videos and ended up watching extreme contortionist clips that affected her body image. ' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/19/10/20/1927234 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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