- wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

pop linux reviewed on distrowatch
by Ian Young 30 May '18

30 May '18

https://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20180528 By a strange coincidence the Sys 76 Linux version gets a look over this week on Distrowatch about the same time as our last meeting. A range of interesting comments amidst the dross. ~ Ian Y

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Sonic and Ultrasonic Attacks Damage Hard Drives and Crash OSes
by Peter Reutemann 30 May '18

30 May '18

'Attackers can cause potentially harmful hard drive and operating system crashes by playing sounds over low-cost speakers embedded in computers or sold in stores, a team of researchers demonstrated last week. The attacks use sonic and ultrasonic sounds to disrupt magnetic HDDs as they read or write data. The researchers showed how the technique could stop some video-surveillance systems from recording live streams. Just 12 seconds of specially designed acoustic interference was all it took to cause video loss in a 720p system made by Ezviz. Sounds that lasted for 105 seconds or more caused the stock Western Digital 3.5 HDD in the device to stop recording altogether until it was rebooted. The device uses flash storage to house its firmware, but by default it uses a magnetic HDD to store the large quantities of video it records. The attack used a speaker hanging from a ceiling that rested about four inches above the surveillance system's HDD. The researchers didn't remove the casing or otherwise tamper with the surveillance system. The technique was also able to disrupt HDDs in desktop and laptop computers running both Windows and Linux. In some cases, it even required a reboot before the PCs worked properly. ' -- source: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/18/05/30/0349202 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 10 Spring Update Improves Linux On WSL With Unix Sockets and More
by Peter Reutemann 29 May '18

29 May '18

'Windows 10 build 1803 has come out this month, but with some problems. AnandTech has a deep-dive with the review examing many new features including the much better support for Linux. WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) now has native Curt and Tar from the command prompt as well as a utility to convert Unix to Windows pathnames called WSLpath.exe which is documented here. In addition it was mentioned on Slashdot in the past about OpenSSH being ported natively to Win32 in certain early builds. It now seems the reason was for Linux interoperability with this Spring Update 2. Unix sockets mean you can run Kali Linux on Windows 10 for penetration testing or run an Apache server in the background with full Linux networking support. Deemons now run in the background even with the command prompt closed. [...]' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/18/05/29/0244210 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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Satya Nadella: “I Believe Right Now Microsoft Is Probably On The Right Side Of History”
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 27 May '18

27 May '18

Interview of the Microsoft boss by the Daily Telegraph <https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=120597…>: ... Nadella's four years in charge cannot be described as anything but a success. Under his watch, its share price has increased by 170 per cent, finally overtaking the levels from the peak of the dotcom boom. Except that share price seems a somewhat short-sighted way of measuring a company’s success. Look at HP. "I always make this case, which is if it was not for Microsoft's openness, the web wouldn't have happened. I was talking to [web creator Sir] Tim Berners-Lee yesterday and I sort of said: 'Think about the current ecosystems and how closed and how walled gardened and riddled with all kinds of ways they've rigged it, [compared] to where we were.' Talk about rewriting history. The Web was growing by leaps and bounds long before Microsoft even noticed it (remember how the first edition of Bill Gates’ book “The Road Ahead” didn’t even mention it?). Netscape was the leader and de-facto setter of standards, until Microsoft belatedly entered the race, and took over by giving away their product for free. Then we had the long period of stagnation under Internet Explorer 6, until Firefox came in to jolt them out of their complacency, followed by Apple’s Safari and Google’s Chrome. So to say that “Microsoft’s openness” had anything to do with it is just shamelessly false.

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There Are Real Reasons For Linux To Replace ifconfig, netstat and Other Classic Tools
by Peter Reutemann 27 May '18

27 May '18

'One of the ongoing system administration controversies in Linux is that there is an ongoing effort to obsolete the old, cross-Unix standard network administration and diagnosis commands of ifconfig, netstat and the like and replace them with fresh new Linux specific things like ss and the ip suite. Old sysadmins are generally grumpy about this; they consider it yet another sign of Linux's 'not invented here' attitude that sees Linux breaking from well-established Unix norms to go its own way. Although I'm an old sysadmin myself, I don't have this reaction. Instead, I think that it might be both sensible and honest for Linux to go off in this direction. There are two reasons for this, one ostensible and one subtle. The ostensible surface issue is that the current code for netstat, ifconfig, and so on operates in an inefficient way. Per various people, netstat et al operate by reading various files in /proc, and doing this is not the most efficient thing in the world (either on the kernel side or on netstat's side). You won't notice this on a small system, but apparently there are real impacts on large ones. Modern commands like ss and ip use Linux's netlink sockets, which are much more efficient. In theory netstat, ifconfig, and company could be rewritten to use netlink too; in practice this doesn't seem to have happened and there may be political issues involving different groups of developers with different opinions on which way to go. (Netstat and ifconfig are part of net-tools, while ss and ip are part of iproute2.) However, the deeper issue is the interface that netstat, ifconfig, and company present to users. In practice, these commands are caught between two masters. On the one hand, the information the tools present and the questions they let us ask are deeply intertwined with how the kernel itself does networking, and in general the tools are very much supposed to report the kernel's reality. On the other hand, the users expect netstat, ifconfig and so on to have their traditional interface (in terms of output, command line arguments, and so on); any number of scripts and tools fish things out of ifconfig output, for example. As the Linux kernel has changed how it does networking, this has presented things like ifconfig with a deep conflict; their traditional output is no longer necessarily an accurate representation of reality.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/18/05/27/1448211 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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Mystery Donor Pledges $1 Million To The GNOME Foundation
by Peter Reutemann 27 May '18

27 May '18

'This week, The GNOME Foundation made a shocking revelation: a mystery donor has pledged $1 million dollars. We don't know who is promising the money -- it could be a rich man or woman, but more likely -- and this is pure speculation -- it is probably a company that benefits from GNOME, such as Red Hat or Canonical. "An anonymous donor has pledged to donate up to $1,000,000 over the next two years, some of which will be matching funds. The GNOME Foundation is grateful for this donation and plans on using these funds to increase staff to streamline operations and to grow its support of the GNOME Project and the surrounding ecosystem. While the GNOME Foundation has maintained its position as a proponent of the GNOME Project, growth has been limited. With these funds, the GNOME Foundation will be able to expand and lead in the free software space," says The GNOME Foundation.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/18/05/27/1653225 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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New speculative-execution vulnerability strikes AMD, ARM, and Intel
by Peter Reutemann 22 May '18

22 May '18

'A new attack that uses processors' speculative-execution capabilities to leak data, named Speculative Store Bypass (SSB), has been published after being independently discovered by Microsoft's Security Response Center and Google Project Zero. Processors from Intel and AMD, along with some of those using ARM's designs, are all affected.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/05/new-speculative-execution-vulnerabi… 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 22 May '18

22 May '18

Hi everyone We have a meeting next Monday: 'Carsten will give a short introduction to their FOSS project "DiLer" which is a LMS and school administration software and how they made it a business model. Some details are available at https://digitale-lernumgebung.de in English. Lawrence D'Oliveiro will show off Pop!_OS, the Ubuntu-derivative that System76 uses on their computers that they sell (https://system76.com/pop)' More details: https://www.meetup.com/WaikatoLinuxUsersGroup/events/246737153 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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Ask Slashdot: Some Good Linux Desktop Option For Kids?
by Peter Reutemann 17 May '18

17 May '18

'I'm looking to re-purpose some of the older hardware that I've held onto to create something of a starter machine for my kids (both aged below 10). At this point it's still just a few shortcut icons I can setup on the desktop for them, primarily to web tools/sites they use, but I'd like some flexibility; everything I've read suggests options that haven't had any activity since 2015. Is there an option out there or is this just a custom job' -- source: https://ask.slashdot.org/story/18/05/17/1425203 See the discussion in the comments of that article. 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 - Upgrading to 18.04
by Ian Stewart 17 May '18

17 May '18

Hi, Ubuntu users are probably aware that about three weeks ago version 18.04.0 was released. This is a Long Term Support (LTS) release. If you are running version 17.10, and your "Software & Updates" --> "Updates" --> "Notify me of a new Ubuntu version:" is set to either "For any new version" or "For long-term support versions", then you will probably have received a GUI pop-up screen asking you if you wanted to do an on-line upgrade to 18.04. I had no problems when performing the on-line upgrade with Ubuntu/Mate 17.10 to 18.04. (Which is better that when I did the 17.04 to 17.10, where I struck an application dependency problem.) I also have a 16.04 LTS Ubuntu/Mate laptop, and I was expecting a pop-up and to get prompted to do the software upgrade to 18.04 LTS, but all I could get was a message to say my 16.04 version was up-to-date. In reading this askubuntu posting: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1028624/not-able-to-upgrade-from-16-04-lts-… ...I found someone has posted the following comment: Upgrades from LTS releases are scheduled after the first patch - 18.04.1 which is usually a month after the first release. They need to make sure everything goes smoothly and then the software manager will allow it. If you're anxious, which based on my experience you shouldn't be cause there are probably tons of bugs, you can still force that upgrade, but that's not recommended. sudo do-release-upgrade -d ...despite it not being recommended I did the "sudo do-release-upgrade -d" and it upgraded my laptop from 16.04 to 18.04, and it seems to be booting and working fine. However, if you read the posting, then be aware that not everyone has had the same level of success: "I did a sudo do-release-upgrade -d on an ASUS SonicMaster with Ubuntu 16.04 LTS on it. After the upgrade, I restarted the machine, and the computer couldn't boot due to some infinite loops while showing messages regarding PCI bus." cheers, Ian.

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Fedora-Based Linux Distro Korora Halts Development
by Peter Reutemann 16 May '18

16 May '18

'Korora, a Fedora-based Linux distro, halted its development this month, BetaNews' Brian Fagioli spotted Wednesday. The announcement would irk many, as Korora consistently received positive feedback from critics and users alike. News outlet ZDNet once described Korora as "Fedora++", while Slashdot readers, too, spoke highly of the distro. At the same time, the announcement should come as little surprise to anyone who has been tracking Korora's work. In a blog post, Korora team wrote: Korora for the forseeable future is not going to be able to march in cadence with the Fedora releases. In addition to that, for the immediate future there will be no updates to the Korora distribution. Our team is infinitesimal (currently 1 developer and 2 community managers) compared to many other distributions, we don't have the luxury of being able to dedicate the amount of time we would like to spend on the project and still satisfy our real life obligations. So we are taking a little sabbatical to avoid complete burn out and rejuvenate ourselves and our passion for Korora/Fedora and wider open source efforts. The team had expressed similar concerns earlier this year: For the past few years Korora has released a new version in line with each Fedora version. That means that approximately twice a year we prepare, test and create 5 different ISO versions. This is as well as, among other things, developing new projects, supporting existing releases and planning the future versions. As each team member has different skills some tasks, such as development, can only be done by one person. All this is done in our spare time along side our job, family and personal responsibilities. For a very small team, currently 3 people plus the occasional input from others, this is a lot of work. It means that often Korora has to take a back seat when real life intrudes. This isn't the first time Korora had to abruptly pause its development. In 2007, Christopher Smart, who kickstarted Korora (at the time based on Gentoo Linux), had discontinued the project -- only to revive it three years later.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/18/05/16/1352245 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 - Upgrading to 18.04
by rowan schischka 16 May '18

16 May '18

My Ubuntu 18.04 upgrade story from 17.10, originally 16.04. I had to re-install xserver-xorg-input-all to get my mouse and keyboard working I also had to reinstall gnome, for some reason only Unity desktop was installed. Other than that it is working fine.

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It Doesn't Take a Genius to See That Microsoft Still Attacks GNU/Linux With Patents to Make Billions of Dollars in 'Protection' Money
by Peter Reutemann 14 May '18

14 May '18

'Intellectual Ventures, Finjan, RPX, and other Microsoft-connected trolls cannot be countered by LOT Network and the likes of it (notably OIN); Microsoft continues to shrewdly distribute patents to trolls, offering 'protection' from them (for a fee) and pressuring OEMs to bundle Microsoft 'apps' or risk retaliatory patent lawsuits' -- source: http://techrights.org/2018/05/14/microsoft-still-attacks-with-patents/ 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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Attention PGP Users: New Vulnerabilities Require You To Take Action Now
by Peter Reutemann 14 May '18

14 May '18

'A group of European security researchers have released a warning about a set of vulnerabilities affecting users of PGP and S/MIME. From a report: EFF has been in communication with the research team, and can confirm that these vulnerabilities pose an immediate risk to those using these tools for email communication, including the potential exposure of the contents of past messages. The full details will be published in a paper on Tuesday at 07:00 AM UTC (3:00 AM Eastern, midnight Pacific). In order to reduce the short-term risk, we and the researchers have agreed to warn the wider PGP user community in advance of its full publication. Our advice, which mirrors that of the researchers, is to immediately disable and/or uninstall tools that automatically decrypt PGP-encrypted email. Until the flaws described in the paper are more widely understood and fixed, users should arrange for the use of alternative end-to-end secure channels, such as Signal, and temporarily stop sending and especially reading PGP-encrypted email.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/18/05/14/149222 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/

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Malware Found In the Ubuntu Snap Store
by Peter Reutemann 14 May '18

14 May '18

'Oh, snap! Just because some packages are available to install directly from the Ubuntu Software Center doesn't make them safe. This is proved by a recent discovery of malware in some snap packages from the Ubuntu Snaps Store. At least two of the snap packages, 2048buntu and hextris, uploaded to the Ubuntu Snaps Store by user Nicolas Tomb, contained malware. All packages by Nicolas have since been removed from the Ubuntu Snaps Store, "pending further investigations." The report comes from a bug which mentions that the 2048buntu snap package (and other packages by Nicolas Tomb) contains a hidden cryptocurrency miner inside. ' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/18/05/12/2140252 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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Same IP Address For Wired And Wireless Connections
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 10 May '18

10 May '18

I did something I thought was a little dodgy in my DHCP server config, namely I assigned the same IP address to both the Ethernet and Wi-Fi MAC addresses for my laptop. I figured this was OK so long as I turned one off before turning on the other. Today, I tried breaking that rule. I started a large rsync transfer over wi-fi, decided it was too slow, and plugged in an Ethernet cable. And it worked! After a few seconds, I was able to turn off the wi-fi, and the transfer continued without a hiccup. Has anyone else tried this?

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A first look at Ubuntu 18.04 LTS desktop
by Peter Reutemann 10 May '18

10 May '18

'Last week, Canonical released Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (codenamed "Bionic Beaver"), the latest long-term support version of the Ubuntu Linux distribution. Ars is working on a full review of the release, but I wanted to share some first impressions of the desktop, which is a major advance over the last LTS version.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/04/bionic-beaver-a-firs… 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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System76 Oryx Pro Linux laptop is now thinner and faster, putting Apple MacBook Pro to shame
by Peter Reutemann 10 May '18

10 May '18

'Last week, System76 started to share details about its refreshed Linux-powered Oryx Pro laptop. It would be thinner and more powerful, while adding twice the battery life of its predecessor. Unfortunately, we did not yet know exactly what the laptop looked like. Today, we finally have official images. This new Oryx Pro is quite breathtaking, as it is a true Pro machine -- with the USB Type-A, Ethernet, and HDMI ports you expect -- while being just 19mm thin. It has the horsepower that power-users need, thanks to its 8th Gen Intel Core i7 processor and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 10-Series GPU. Hey, Apple, this is what a "Pro" laptop should be...' -- source: https://betanews.com/2018/05/09/system76-oryx-pro-linux-laptop/ The video is fun to watch, too. :-) 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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Multiple OS Vendors Release Security Patches After Misinterpreting Intel Docs
by Peter Reutemann 09 May '18

09 May '18

'Almost all major OS vendors released security patches yesterday after a researcher discovered that some OS makers have misinterpreted an Intel CPU debug feature and left their systems open to attacks. From a report: The vulnerability is in how the OS vendors implemented a hardware debug mechanism for Intel x86-64 architectures -- and more specifically the MOV SS and POP SS instructions. "In certain circumstances after the use of certain Intel x86-64 architecture instructions, a debug exception pointing to data in a lower ring (for most operating systems, the kernel Ring 0 level) is made available to operating system components running in Ring 3," the CERT/CC team explained in an advisory published yesterday. Explained in layman's terms, "this may allow an attacker to utilize operating system APIs to gain access to sensitive memory information or control low-level operating system functions." Operating systems that mishandle this debug exception and had their systems open to attacks include Apple, Microsoft, FreeBSD, Red Hat, Ubuntu, SUSE Linux, and other Linux distros based on the Linux Kernel -- which is also affected.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/18/05/09/1724220 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 Moves Browsers Into Post-Password Future With WebAuthn Tech
by Peter Reutemann 09 May '18

09 May '18

'Today, Mozilla released Firefox 60 for Windows, Mac, Linux and Android, and with it arrives Web Authentication API for desktop browsers. From a report: Firefox 60 supports technology called Web Authentication, or WebAuthn for short, that can be used to grant you access to websites with a physical authentication device like a YubiKey dongle, biometric identity proof using an Android phone's fingerprint reader or the iPhone's Face ID, and some other alternatives to passwords. Passwords are a particular problem on the web. Fake websites can coax you to type in credentials that then can be used to steal money from your bank account or snoop your email -- a problem called phishing. Even if you pick hard-to-guess passwords, never reuse them on multiple sites and always remember them, passwords still aren't that strong a foundation for security these days. We're still a long way away from a post-password future, but WebAuthn is an important step, if nothing else, in making sites more secure.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/18/05/09/1932232 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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Cloudflare Embraces ARM As Qualcomm Might Leave
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 09 May '18

09 May '18

Seems like Qualcomm might be giving up <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/05/08/arm_server_cpus_why_are_they_going_…> on trying to offer ARM servers for the data centre. But in that same article, one of the comments linked to this item <http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/design/cloudflare-bets-arm-servers-it-ex…> which says that Cloudflare is going all in on using ARM servers to expand its CDN worldwide. I suppose content delivery is a market segment where sheer CPU grunt is less important than I/O throughput, power efficiency etc.

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Chrome 66 Arrives With Autoplaying Content Blocked By Default
by Peter Reutemann 09 May '18

09 May '18

'Google today launched Chrome 66 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. The desktop release includes autoplaying content muted by default, security improvements, and new developer features. You can update to the latest version now using the browser's built-in silent updater or download it directly from google.com/chrome. In our tests, autoplaying content that is muted still plays automatically. Autoplaying content with sound, whether it has visible controls or not, and whether it is set to play on loop or not, simply does not start playing. Note that this is all encompassing -- even autoplaying content you are expecting or is the main focus of the page does not play. YouTube videos, for example, no longer start playing automatically. And in case that's not enough, or if a page somehow circumvents the autoplaying block, you can still mute whole websites.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/18/04/18/0410202 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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Gimp 2.10.0 release
by Peter Reutemann 09 May '18

09 May '18

'The long-awaited GIMP 2.10.0 is finally here! This is a huge release, which contains the result of 6 long years of work (GIMP 2.8 was released almost exactly 6 years ago!) by a small but dedicated core of contributors. The Changes in short: - Image processing nearly fully ported to GEGL, allowing high bit depth processing, multi-threaded and hardware accelerated pixel processing, and more. - Color management is a core feature now, most widgets and preview areas are color-managed. - Many improved tools, and several new and exciting tools, such as the Warp transform, the Unified transform and the Handle transform tools. - On-canvas preview for all filters ported to GEGL. - Improved digital painting with canvas rotation and flipping, symmetry painting, MyPaint brush support… - Support for several new image formats added (OpenEXR, RGBE, WebP, HGT), as well as improved support for many existing formats (in particular more robust PSD importing). - Metadata viewing and editing for Exif, XMP, IPTC, and DICOM. - Basic HiDPI support: automatic or user-selected icon size. - New themes for GIMP (Light, Gray, Dark, and System) and new symbolic icons meant to somewhat dim the environment and shift the focus towards content (former theme and color icons are still available in Preferences). - And more, better, more, and even more awesome!' -- source: https://www.gimp.org/news/2018/04/27/gimp-2-10-0-released/ 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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Drupal Sites Fall Victims To Cryptojacking Campaigns
by Peter Reutemann 08 May '18

08 May '18

'After the publication of two severe security flaws in the Drupal CMS, cybercrime groups have turned their sights on this web technology in the hopes of finding new ground to plant malware on servers and make money through illegal cryptocurrency mining. [...] Now, as time passes by, more malware campaigns targeting Drupal sites are getting off the ground -- and two of them have been spotted the past week. The most recent of these campaigns has been discovered by US security researcher Troy Mursch. The researcher discovered a group that gained access to Drupal sites and hid a version of the Coinhive in-browser cryptocurrency miner inside a file named "jquery [dot] once [dot] js?v=1.2," loaded on each of the compromised sites. Mursch initially tracked down the infected files to over 100,000 domains, then narrowed down the results to 80,000 domains, and finally confirmed the infection on at least 348 sites where the in-browsing mining operation was actually taking place.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/18/05/07/1636258 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 Considering an HTML5-Based OS Installer
by Peter Reutemann 08 May '18

08 May '18

'Ubuntu's Self-Appointed Benevolent Dictator for Life, Mark Shuttleworth, is considering backing a new Ubuntu installer that would be using HTML5 via the Electron Framework. This theoretical installer would re-use the company's existing HTML5 code for managing MAAS installations, integrate with Electron, and also better support their Snap packaging format, according to his proposal. What could possibly go wrong with an HTML5/Electron operating system installer? Mark also announced that Ubuntu 18.10 is codenamed the Cosmic Cuttlefish.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/18/05/08/1712221 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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