- wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

Open Review Toolkit
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 28 Nov '16

28 Nov '16

The Open Review Toolkit is software that turns a book manuscript into a website where users can read and annotate your text, and “you can collect valuable data to help launch your book”. <http://freedom-to-tinker.com/2016/11/27/announcing-the-open-review-toolkit/>

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Ex-Debian systemd Haters Celebrate Second Birthday
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 28 Nov '16

28 Nov '16

Two years going, this Linux OS that aims for "Init Freedom" isn't the most vibrant distribution out there. When's the last time you've heard of Devuan or even used it yourself? This year much of the systemd "hate" seems to have calmed down compared to prior years, although new features continue to be tacked onto systemd. <http://phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Devuan-Systemd-Debian-Turns-…>

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resistance futile goto WIN 10 now
by Ian Young 28 Nov '16

28 Nov '16

While messing about with a laptop that has a video defect causing the screen to remain blank initially, I tried a distro called Zorin. Amazingly it lit up the screen early in the process of starting Linux. So impressed was I that I looked up Zorin on the Guggle and found this article. In the comments was this gem. Looks like I won't be needing Linux any more. But the price will be using Windows 10. Nah, maybe I'll just stay in the backwoods. http://hothardware.com/news/zorin-os-12-linux-distro-could-be-a-windows-10-… "I guess I just don't see much point anymore now that Windows 10 can natively run Ubuntu. Bash, SSH, Telnet, full desktop, X11 etc. The Linux subsystem runs fine alongside Win 10. You have both running simultaneously. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0hCB8_HFzg Have a look all you Linux fans, after all, it no longer has to be one or the other. If you have the anniversary update, you already have ubuntu waiting to be activated. It's a fairly long video but should cover everything you might want to know." PS Caveat. Had to transcribe the YouTube link so may be subject to error, and I haven't watched it.

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Debian Putting Everything On The /usr
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 25 Nov '16

25 Nov '16

In the old days, back when disks were smaller, Unix and Linux systems tended to have the “/” (root) and “/usr” directories on different volumes. In fact, I can remember that the DEC/Compaq Tru64 UNIX installer insisted on arranging things this way, even though the disks were quite big enough by then to put the whole OS on one volume. (I just moved /usr into the root volume afterwards and removed the redundant mount point.) One consequence of this was that you had to be careful where you put core parts of the system: things had to be designed so that you would still have some useable functionality if you only had / mounted and not /usr (for recovery purposes). Thus, binaries in /bin and /sbin could depend on shareable libraries in /lib, but not /usr/lib, while of course binaries in /usr/bin and /usr/sbin could freely depend on both. These days, nobody cares about such a possibility any more. Other distros (notably Red Hat) abandoned the root-usr distinction a long time ago, and merged things so /bin was just a symlink to /usr/bin, and /lib to /usr/lib, anyway. You can still put /usr on a separate volume, but your system will no longer work if it cannot be mounted. Now Debian is following suit. <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/11/24/debian_testing_merged_codeusrcode/>

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System76 Oryx Pro Ubuntu Laptop Review
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 24 Nov '16

24 Nov '16

Comes preinstalled with your choice of Ubuntu LTS 16.04.1 or 16.10 (officially), unofficially it seems they are tolerant of those who prefer other distros. A high-spec machine, solidly-built, which certainly cannot be described as “anorexic”. And with a price tag to match. And unfashionably expandable, too: In total, this laptop offers an Ethernet port, an SD card slot, 2 Mini DisplayPorts, an HDMI port, 2 USB 3.1 Type-C ports, 3 USB 3.0 Type-A ports, and both headphone and mic jacks. The GTX 1070 models even include a headphone amplifier. <http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/11/system76-oryx-pro-review-linux-in-a-…>

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Tor phone is antidote to Google “hostility” over Android, says developer
by Peter Reutemann 23 Nov '16

23 Nov '16

'The Tor Project recently announced the release of its prototype for a Tor-enabled smartphone—an Android phone beefed up with privacy and security in mind, and intended as equal parts opsec kung fu and a gauntlet to Google. The new phone, designed by Tor developer Mike Perry, is based on Copperhead OS, the hardened Android distribution profiled first by Ars earlier this year.' -- source: http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/11/tor-phone-prototype-google-hostilit… 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 25 Now Available -- Makes It Easier To Switch From Windows 10 Or Mac
by Peter Reutemann 22 Nov '16

22 Nov '16

'After the release of both alpha and beta versions, Fedora 25 is officially here and ready for production machines. If you aren't familiar with the popular Linux-based operating system, please know that it is the distribution of choice for the founder of the Linux kernel, Linus Torvalds. One of the most endearing qualities of Fedora is its focus on only offering truly free open source software. Also, you can always count on a very modern version of the Linux kernel being available. Despite having very up-to-date packages, it is always very stable too. My favorite aspect, however, is the commitment to the GNOME desktop environment; other DEs are available, though. The team says, "Fedora 25 Workstation now makes it easier to for Windows and OS X users to get started, with Fedora Media Writer serving as the default download for those operating systems. This tool helps users find and download the current Fedora release and write it to removable media, like a USB stick, allowing potential Fedora users to 'test drive' the operating system from that media environment. Fedora can then be installed to their systems with the same process".' -- source: https://apple.slashdot.org/story/16/11/22/154248 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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Introducing ... The Tor Phone
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 22 Nov '16

22 Nov '16

"The iOS App Store is at a significant disadvantage there even compared to Google Play," [Tor developer Mike Perry] told us. "Each iOS app is re-encrypted specifically for the user with Apple's DRM, making it technically impossible to verify that the package you installed matches the official one." ... In order to solve the Android security mess, Google is taking steps that hurt user freedom, and make Android vulnerable to compelled backdoors, Perry argued. ... "Copperhead is also the only Android ROM that supports verified boot, which prevents exploits from modifying the boot, system, recovery, and vendor device partitions," ... "This makes Copperhead an excellent choice for our base system." <http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/11/tor-phone-prototype-google-hostilit…>

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AGM next Monday
by Peter Reutemann 21 Nov '16

21 Nov '16

Hi everyone The Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Waikato Linux Users Group Society is coming up next Monday. The agenda - at this stage - is as follows: - President's Report - Treasurer's Report - Election of 2017 Committee - General business (eg future of WLUG library, wording in the charter with regard to advertising of jobs using the wlug mailing list, etc) - Consumption of pizza Details: https://www.meetup.com/WaikatoLinuxUsersGroup/events/233952391/ 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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Antivirus Firm Kaspersky Launches Its Own Hackproof OS, Based On Microkernel
by Peter Reutemann 18 Nov '16

18 Nov '16

'Kaspersky Lab, a Russian cybersecurity and antivirus company, has announced their new operating system which was in development for the last 14 years. Dubbed as Kaspersky OS, it has made its debut on a Kraftway Layer 3 Switch. Not many details have been revealed by the CEO Eugene Kaspersky in his blog post. The GUI-less OS -- as it appears in the image -- has been designed from scratch and Eugene said it doesn't have "even the slightest smell of Linux." He actually tagged "Kaspersky OS being non-Linux" as one of the three main distinctive features he mentioned. The other two features he briefly described are rather fascinating. The first feature is that the Kaspersky OS is based on microkernel architecture, which basically means using the minimum amount of ingredients to bake your own operating system. The OS can be custom-designed as per requirements by using different modification blocks. The second distinctive feature is the inbuilt security system which can control application behavior and OS modules. It touts Kaspersky OS as practically unhackable, unless a cyber-baddie has a quantum computer -- which will be required to crack the digital signature of the platform -- at his disposal.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/16/11/18/2039245 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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This $5 Device Can Hack Your Locked Computer In One Minute
by Peter Reutemann 18 Nov '16

18 Nov '16

'Next time you go out for lunch and leave your computer unattended at the office, be careful. A new tool makes it almost trivial for criminals to log onto websites as if they were you, and get access to your network router, allowing them to launch other types of attacks. Hackers and security researchers have long found ways to hack into computers left alone. But the new $5 tool called PoisonTap, created by the well-known hacker and developer Samy Kamkar, can even break into password-protected computers, as long as there’s a browser open in the background.' -- source: http://motherboard.vice.com/en_ca/read/this-5-device-can-hack-your-locked-c… 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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Alternatives To MATLAB
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 17 Nov '16

17 Nov '16

In this announcement about the latest release of GNU Octave, which “remains largely compatible with the widely-used MATLAB” <http://phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=GNU-Octave-4.2>, one commenter bemoaned the lack of a serious alternative to MATLAB’s Simulink Toolbox. To which another suggested looking at OpenModelica <https://openmodelica.org/>.

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Debian Is Moving To MariaDB
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 17 Nov '16

17 Nov '16

I upgraded my main machine, running Debian Unstable, a few days ago, and my time and billing system stopped working. Further investigation revealed that the mysql-server package had somehow disappeared. I am installing it again now, and it looks like it is putting in MariaDB instead of Oracle MySQL. The executables etc still keep the “mysql” name, so it looks like nothing in my code need change...

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Are Antivirus Tools A Useless Box-Ticking Exercise?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 17 Nov '16

17 Nov '16

... many existing tools [are] ineffective "magic" that engineers are forced to install for the sake of compliance but at the expense of real security. <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/11/17/google_hacker_pleads_try_whitelists…>

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Word For The Day: “Serverless”
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 16 Nov '16

16 Nov '16

When I first came across this term, I assumed it meant something like “distributed peer-to-peer” rather than having dedicated servers. Turns out it means something quite different: instead of paying for the server as a whole, you pay per service request. <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/11/16/forget_razors_and_blades_apis_are_t…>

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The End Of GCJ?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 16 Nov '16

16 Nov '16

GCJ, the GNU Compiler for Java, has been languishing for some time, and may be about to be put out of its misery. Unlike the Sun/Oracle compiler, GCJ can compile to native machine code (thanks to the common GCC infrastructure), it is not restricted to some intermediate byte code. It originated before Sun open-sourced Java, and I guess a lot of the need for it went away when OpenJDK appeared. <http://phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=GCC-Patch-To-Drop-GCJ>

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Disk-Reliability Data From Backblaze
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 16 Nov '16

16 Nov '16

Backup service company Backblaze has been migrating en mass from 2TB drives to 8TB ones. The Seagate ones, at least show no difference in failure rate--1.6% per year. They must be getting a special deal on the price, because last time I looked at cost, 4TB was still the sweet spot, same as it was 2 years ago. <http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/11/8tb-disks-still-looki…>.

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How Toy Story 2 Got Deleted Twice, Once On Accident, Again On Purpose
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 16 Nov '16

16 Nov '16

How a wayward “rm -rf *” almost destroyed Pixar’s “Toy Story 2”, and how it was recovered from a copy that a staffer just happened to have on her home machine <http://thenextweb.com/media/2012/05/21/how-pixars-toy-story-2-was-deleted-t…>.

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Ubuntu Budgie Is Now An Official Ubuntu Flavor
by rowan schischka 10 Nov '16

10 Nov '16

Cheers for that Peter, budgie looks like an interesting interface. Im going to have to review it. Why is there so much effort going into remixes when you can install the desktop on stock ubuntu? -- Kind Regards Rowan Schischka

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Open Source Pioneer Munich Debates Report That Suggests Abandoning Linux for Windows 10
by Peter Reutemann 10 Nov '16

10 Nov '16

'As an open-source software pioneer, Munich spent years moving away from Windows, but now politicians are debating a report that suggests the city could eventually abandon Linux. A report on TechRepublic adds: If the authority ruling Germany's third largest city backs proposals to make Windows 10 and Microsoft Office available across the council, it would be a significant step away from open-source software for an organization once seen as its champion. Over a nine-year period starting in 2004, the council moved about 15,000 staff from using Windows and Office to LiMux -- a custom version of the Ubuntu desktop OS -- and other open source software. At the time, Munich was one of the largest organizations to reject Windows, and Microsoft took the city's leaving so seriously that then CEO Steve Ballmer flew to Munich to meet the mayor. Now a report commissioned by current mayor Dieter Reiter to help determine the future of IT at the council has outlined a project to make Windows 10 and Microsoft Office available to all departments, and give staff the choice about whether to use Windows or LiMux.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/16/11/09/212246 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 Budgie Is Now An Official Ubuntu Flavor
by Peter Reutemann 09 Nov '16

09 Nov '16

'After two successful major releases, budgie-remix has finally been accepted as an official Ubuntu flavor, earlier today during a meeting where four Canonical technicians voted positive. As such, we're extremely happy to inform our readers that the new Ubuntu flavor is called Ubuntu Budgie. In April this year, when budgie-remix hit the road towards its first major release, versioned 16.04, we reported that David Mohammed was kind enough to inform Softpedia about the fact that he got in touch with Ubuntu MATE leader Martin Wimpress, who urged the developer to target Ubuntu 16.10 for an official status. budgie-remix 16.10 arrived as well this fall shortly after the release of Ubuntu 16.10 (Yakkety Yak), and the dream of becoming an official Ubuntu flavor is now a reality. Re-branding of the official website and the entire distribution is ongoing. "We now move full steam ahead and look forward to working with the Ubuntu Develop Membership Board to examine and work through the technical aspects [...] 17.04 will be our first official release under the new name," said David Mohammed in the announcement.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/16/11/08/2211257 Cheers, Petr -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Signal Looks Secure
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 08 Nov '16

08 Nov '16

Signal is an application and secure messaging protocol created by a group led by Moxie Marlinspike. It has also been adopted by some other applications, notably Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. Now, an independent security audit by a multinational team <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/11/08/trust_it_results_of_signals_first_f…> has come to the conclusion that there are no obvious flaws in the protocol (accidental or otherwise)--that it really can deliver on the promise of preserving privacy in communication over an insecure network.

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Web of Trust, Downloaded 140M Times, Pulled From Extension Stores After Revelations That It Sells Users' Data
by Peter Reutemann 08 Nov '16

08 Nov '16

'According to multiple reports, Web of Trust, one of the top privacy and security extensions for web browsers with over 140 million downloads, collects and sells some of the data of its users -- and it does without properly anonymizing it. Upon learning about this, Mozilla, Google and Opera quickly pulled the extension off their respective extension stores. From a report on The Register: A browser extension which was found to be harvesting users' browsing histories and selling them to third parties has had its availability pulled from a number of web browsers' add-on repositories. Last week, an investigative report by journalists at the Hamburg-based German television broadcaster, Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR), revealed that Web of Trust Services (WoT) had been harvesting netizens' web browsing histories through its browser add-on and then selling them to third parties. While WoT claimed it anonymised the data that it sold, the journalists were able to identify more than 50 users from the sample data it acquired from an intermediary. NDR quoted the data protection commissioner of Hamburg, Johannes Caspar, criticising WoT for not adequately establishing whether users consented to the tracking and selling of their browsing data. Those consent issues have resulted in the browser add-on being pulled from the add-on repositories of both Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome, although those who have already installed the extension in their browsers will need to manually uninstall it to stop their browsing being tracked.' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/16/11/08/1551236 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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Two Critical MySQL Bugs Discovered
by Peter Reutemann 05 Nov '16

05 Nov '16

'Two critical privilege escalation vulnerabilities in MySQL, MariaDB, and PerconaDB can help take control of the whole server, which is very bad for shared environments... Administrators need to check their database versions, as attackers can chain two critical vulnerabilities and completely take over the server hosting the database... The first vulnerability, a privilege escalation/race condition flaw, gives elevated privileges to a local system user with access to a database and allows them to execute arbitrary code as the database system user. This gives an attacker access to all of the databases on the affected server... The privilege escalation/race condition flaw can be chained with another critical vulnerability, a root privilege escalation vulnerability, to further elevate the system level user to gain root on the server.' -- source: https://developers.slashdot.org/story/16/11/05/056227 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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US Government Launches Open-Source Repository
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 04 Nov '16

04 Nov '16

The US Federal Government has just opened code.gov, a “platform designed to improve access to the federal government’s custom-developed software” <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/11/04/code_gov_goes_live/>. You can browse projects by department/agency.

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