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MTP protocol - why needed?
by Ian Young 16 Oct '16

16 Oct '16

Alas, more thread breaking in subject line. After a bit more reading on MTP it seems there is a rationale for its existence. That said, it appears that the protocol has not won universal acclaim.Some people are very scathing about it. In part my post was a bit overwrought as I had never heard of MTP, but then I have never used an Android phone until very recently. ~ Ian Y

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why i need this in my life?
by Ian Young 15 Oct '16

15 Oct '16

Apologies for extra posting bur after reading this article, what the botheration? Any phoneware suppliers out there not utterly fith? Good grief, Utterly random selection from something they say is the internet. http://www.howtogeek.com/192732/android-usb-connections-explained-mtp-ptp-a…

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raspberry PIXEL
by rowan schischka 15 Oct '16

15 Oct '16

Rasbian now has its own desktop environment called PIXEL https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi/introducing-pixel/ Considering I'm already demonstrating android on raspberry pi, we may as well have a look at this new interface if we have time. Can I ask people to bring their old, unused micro SD cards; Iv got one but its already been written to with dd a few times, and I don't know how much life is left in it. -- Kind Regards Rowan Schischka

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elementary?
by Ian Young 15 Oct '16

15 Oct '16

Not a good review from dedoimedo. " Elementary OS 0.4 has some nice goodies, but they all completely over-shadowed by a slew of big bugs, heating issues, inconsistent behavior, poor multimedia support, weak smartphone support, non-existent Samba support, a less-than-ideal responsiveness of its desktop and apps, weird graphic artefacts and glitches, poor contrast, and a few others. This is just too much for an ordinary user to commit to. I'm particularly sad because Freya had started showing promise, but it's all gone now. Then again, Xerus really killed the Ubuntu line, so it comes as no surprise." http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/elementary-0-4-loki.html Anyone know what is this MTP protocol by the way? It sounds a bit surplus to requirements. Perhaps my phone is not smart enough?

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Ian S Was Right About DECnet Phase IV
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 14 Oct '16

14 Oct '16

Remember I said DECnet Phase IV couldn’t have been in existence in 1983? In fact, these documents <http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/dec/decnet/phase_IV/> make it clear it was introduced in 1982.

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Security Economics Of The Internet Of Things
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 10 Oct '16

10 Oct '16

Basically, neither the buyers nor the sellers of these devices care about fixing the security problems, since the victims are usually somebody else. So the only way to solve them is via Government intervention. But this has to be done with international cooperation--no single country can do it. <https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/10/security_econom_1.html>

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Why Linus Torvalds Prefers x86 Over ARM
by Peter Reutemann 09 Oct '16

09 Oct '16

'Linus Torvalds answered a question about his favorite chip architecture at the Linaro Connect conference. An anonymous Slashdot reader quotes PCWorld: People are too fixated with the instruction set and the CPU core, Torvalds said. But ultimately "what matters is all the infrastructure around the instruction set, and x86 has all that infrastructure... at a lot of different levels. It's open in a way that no other architecture is... Being compatible just wasn't as big of a deal for the ARM ecosystem as it has been traditionally for the x86 ecosystem... I've been personally pretty disappointed with ARM as a hardware platform, not as an instruction set, though I've had my issues there, too. As a hardware platform, it is still not very pleasant to deal with." You can watch the whole half-hour conversation on YouTube. My favorite part is where Linus candidly acknowledges that "sometimes my grumpiness makes more news than my being nice... 99% of the time I'm a very happy manager, and I mentally pat people on the head all the time. That maybe then highlights the times when things don't work so well a bit more."' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/16/10/09/0755231 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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Persistent Memory At LinuxCon 2016
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 09 Oct '16

09 Oct '16

Seems like there is a lot of interest currently in “persistent memory” architectures (e.g. flash storage that doesn’t sit on the other side of a slow SATA interface). Quite a few different programming models and libraries are being developed to try to find the best approach to making efficient use of this resource <http://phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Persistent-Memory-Linux-2016>. I suppose this is like the early days of disks (and drums, and tapes), when the first primitive filesystems were being developed. Anybody remember core memories? But they were never used this way...

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Looks Like Fedora 25 Will Default To Wayland
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 08 Oct '16

08 Oct '16

Wayland, the complete reworking of the antiquated X11 graphics/windowing architecture along more modern lines, has been many years in the development. Looks like it is finally ready for prime time <http://phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Fedora-25-Wayland-Continues>.

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ISP GMX attempts the nigh impossible: PGP for the masses
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 07 Oct '16

07 Oct '16

Will this <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/10/06/pgp_email_service_gmx/> finally take secure e-mail mainstream?

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Linux is a new frontier for young developer
by Peter Reutemann 07 Oct '16

07 Oct '16

'When I was 17 years old, I started using Linux because I wanted a desktop that resembled my brother-in-law's Gentoo laptop, which used the KDE environment. Instead, I got the now-nostalgic brown and orange GNOME 2 environment because I'd installed Ubuntu. (Ubuntu has since changed its color palette.) At the time, I couldn't go back to Windows Vista and I didn't ask my in-law for help. So I hunkered down and started learning. But I was scared of other Linux distributions and felt lucky that I could even get Ubuntu on my computer. I started to learn how to make my newly installed system look and feel how I wanted it to. For a year or so, I executed shell scripts with reckless abandon, as root, which downloaded icons and possibly zero-day exploits. GNOME-Look was a staple source for me. I had fun learning about all the free software that one could get through Ubuntu's software center and Synaptic. To be frank, I only cared that it was gratis. I was a kid and could not afford much of anything. But, the fact that a lot of software was free as in beer got me thinking and made me wonder why.' -- source: https://opensource.com/life/16/10/a-linux-journey 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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could it finally be
by Ian Young 07 Oct '16

07 Oct '16

Year of Linux on the Windows desktop? Sorry, just couldn't refrain :/

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Unity 8 Desktop Session Arrives in Ubuntu 16.10
by Peter Reutemann 06 Oct '16

06 Oct '16

'Added to the Ubuntu meta package, the new Unity 8 desktop session will be available to try on all new installs and upgrades of Ubuntu 16.10, but only as an alternate login session to Unity 7. Unity 8 is not -- repeat: not -- going to be the default session in this release. Shipping it as a preview session is a great idea. It means to try Unity 8 on Ubuntu 16.10 you won't need to install a set of packages, or faff around with special set-up, or add a PPA. When at the Unity Greeter (aka the login screen) just click the session selector button, followed by 'Unity 8,' and then proceed to login as normal.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/16/10/06/1650200 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 Offers Landsat & Sentinel-2 Data On Its Cloud
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 06 Oct '16

06 Oct '16

Google is now offering another way to get hold of satellite imagery from NASA’s Landsat and the ESA’s Sentinel-2 program, using its cloud service <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/10/06/google_landsat_and_sentinel2_imager…>. This should mitigate the bandwidth bottlenecks, but maybe it doesn’t make navigating the files to find what you want any easier...

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BadKernel Vulnerability Affects One In 16 Android Smartphones
by Peter Reutemann 05 Oct '16

05 Oct '16

'A security bug in Google's V8 JavaScript engine is indirectly affecting around one in 16 Android devices, impacting smartphone models from all major vendors, such as LG, Samsung, Motorola, and Huawei. Despite this bug being public for more than a year, only in August 2016 have Chinese security researchers discovered that the V8 issue also affected a whole range of Android-related products where the older V8 engine versions had been deployed. Affected products included Google Chrome Mobile, Opera Mobile, apps that use the WebView component (Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, WeChat, etc.) and apps that deploy the Tencent X5.SDK (a bunch of Chinese apps). It is estimated that around one in 16 Android devices is vulnerable to this issue, nicknamed BadKernel. The flaw leads to a RCE on Android devices, allowing attackers to take full control over one's smartphone. Despite BadKernel being discovered in August 2016, because all research was only published in Chinese, most E.U. and U.S. users have no clue they might be affected. One of the best ways to protect yourself, as noted in the report, is to keep your apps and operating system updated. You can view this list via Trustlook's website to see if your device is affected. There's also a dedicated BadKernel security scanner you can download from the Play Store to check for the vulnerability.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/16/10/05/033233 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 Project Lets You Install Arch Linux In the Windows Subsystem For Linux
by Peter Reutemann 05 Oct '16

05 Oct '16

'Softpedia reports that there's a new project on GitHub, called alwsl, which promises to let you install the Arch Linux operating system on Windows 10's new WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) feature, which allows users to run native Linux command-line tools directly on the Windows operating system alongside their modern desktop and apps. For example, Canonical and Microsoft brought Bash on Ubuntu on Windows using the new WSL functionality. For now, the alwsl project, which is developed by a group of German developers that call themselves "Turbo Developers," offers a .bat file that you can use to install Arch Linux on a WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) host, but the software is in developer preview stage. The first stable release, alwsl 1.0 will be able not only to install Arch Linux on the Windows Subsystem for Linux host in Windows 10 editions that support it, but also to create and manage users and snapshots. Also, it looks like it will get rolling upgrades just like a normal Arch Linux installation gets. The final release is expected to launch on December 2016, and you can monitor its development progress on GitHub.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/16/10/05/1510203 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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Encryption App Signal Wins Fight Against FBI Subpoena and Gag Order
by Peter Reutemann 05 Oct '16

05 Oct '16

'Signal, widely considered the gold standard of encrypted messaging apps, was put to the test earlier this year when a FBI subpoena and gag order that demanded a wide range of information on two users resulted in a federal grand jury investigation in Virginia. The makers of Signal, Open Whisper Systems, profoundly disappointed law enforcement. The app collects as little data as possible and therefore was unable to hand anything useful over to agents. "That's not because Signal chose not to provide logs of information," ACLU lawyer Brett Kaufman told the Associated Press. "It's just that it couldn't." "The Signal service was designed to minimize the data we retain," Moxie Marlinspike, the founder of Open Whisper Systems, told the New York Times. The subpoena came with a yearlong gag order that was successfully challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union. Signal's creators challenged the gag order as unconstitutional, "because it is not narrowly tailored to a compelling government interest." The challenge was successful. In addition to being popularly considered the best consumer encrypted messaging app available, Signal's technology is used by Facebook for Secret Conversations, WhatsApp for encrypted messages, and Google's Allo. Confronted with the subpoena, Marlinspike went to the ACLU for legal counsel. The ACLU responded with a letter saying that even though Signal did not have data the FBI sought, it still strenuously objected (PDF) to the fact the FBI wanted so much information.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/16/10/04/2144202 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Apple, Google, Microsoft: We Have No Government Email Scanning Program Like Yahoo's
by Peter Reutemann 05 Oct '16

05 Oct '16

'Apple, Google and Microsoft -- three of the largest technology companies in the U.S. -- have each said they don't scan all incoming messages for the U.S. government, which is exactly what Yahoo does. According to Reuters, Yahoo secretly built a custom software program last year to search all of its customers' incoming emails for specific information provided by U.S. intelligence officials. The company complied with a classified U.S. government directive, scanning hundreds of millions of Yahoo Mail accounts at the behest of the National Security Agency or FBI. Vocativ reports: In a statement, a Microsoft spokesperson told Vocativ that "We have never engaged in the secret scanning of email traffic like what has been reported today about Yahoo." While Apple declined to give a statement on the record, a representative for the company did, in response to Vocativ's question, refer to CEO Tim Cook's official letter on consumer privacy, which reads in part: "I want to be absolutely clear that we have never worked with any government agency from any country to create a backdoor in any of our products or services. We have also never allowed access to our servers. And we never will." The fact that both the companies declined further statement means it's not yet known if the NSA or FBI approached them to request they build a program like Yahoo's. Meanwhile, a spokesperson from Alphabet's Google issued a statement to CNBC: "We've never received such a request, but if we did, our response would be simple: 'no way.'" [The spokesperson later clarified that the company has not received a "directive" or "order" to that effect, either, according to The Intercept.] But the question is whether or not you believe them. With Yahoo's case, only a handful of employees knew about the program. The same could be true with Apple, Google, Microsoft or any other large tech company. Edward Snowden tweeted not too long after Reuters' report surfaced: "Heads up: Any major email service not clearly, categorically denying this tomorrow -- without careful phrasing -- is as guilty as Yahoo."' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/16/10/04/2252242 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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KDE Plasma 5.8 LTS Desktop Officially Released
by Peter Reutemann 05 Oct '16

05 Oct '16

'KDE will celebrate 20 years of activity on October 14, 2016, and they've just released the first LTS (Long Term Support) version of the KDE Plasma desktop environment. Prominent new features of KDE Plasma 5.8 LTS include support for desktop widgets, a new system-wide search functionality that promises to let users easily search their KDE desktops for everything they want, including apps, music, videos, files, folders, etc., a new tool to get hot new stuff for your KDE Plasma desktop, such as wallpapers, widgets, desktop effects, or window styles, and infinite customization possibilities. Moreover, KDE Plasma 5.8 LTS comes with a unified look for the default Breeze theme so that, no matter what type of application you're using (Qt4, GTK2, GTK3, or Qt5), it will look the same, mobile phone notifications, along with the ability to use your smartphone as a PC remote, transfer files or mute music during calls, all with the new KDE Connect plasmoid. There's also Right-to-Left (RTL) language support, simplified global shortcuts, improvements to many applets, and much better Wayland support. KDE Plasma 5.8 LTS will receive nine point releases until 2018. "Today KDE releases its first Long Term Support edition of its flagship desktop software, Plasma," reads the announcement. "This marks the point where the developers and designers are happy to recommend Plasma for the widest possible audience be they enterprise or non-techy home users. If you tried a KDE desktop previously and have moved away, now is the time to re-assess, Plasma is simple by default, powerful when needed."' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/16/10/04/1941237 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 16.04 Available in Latest Insider Update To Windows 10
by Peter Reutemann 04 Oct '16

04 Oct '16

'The latest Windows 10 Insider preview -- build 14936 -- features Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. When a user enables the 'Bash on Ubuntu on Windows' feature for the first time, OMGUbuntu reports, Windows 10 now installs an Ubuntu 16.04 (Xenial Xerus) image instead of Ubuntu 14.04 (Trusty Tahr). From the report: The updated version of Ubuntu in the WSL only affects new instances, i.e., those created by running lxrun.exe /install or on the very first run of the bash.exe setup. It is possible to upgrade WSL instances from Ubuntu 14.04 to Ubuntu 16.04 manually by running the do-release-upgrade command. Other changes in the WSL in Build 14936 include support for chroot system call, epoll support for /dev/null and the ability for bash -c to redirect to a file.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/16/10/03/198222 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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Security Design: Stop Trying To Fix The User
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 03 Oct '16

03 Oct '16

<https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/10/security_design.html>: The problem isn't the users: it's that we've designed our computer systems' security so badly that we demand the user do all of these counterintuitive things. Why can't users choose easy-to-remember passwords? Why can't they click on links in emails with wild abandon? Why can't they plug a USB stick into a computer without facing a myriad of viruses? Why are we trying to fix the user instead of solving the underlying security problem?

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Linux Should Soon Start Receiving "Make WiFi Fast" Improvements
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 03 Oct '16

03 Oct '16

Some improvements coming for Linux Wi-Fi code <http://phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Linux-Getting-Make-WiFi-Fast>. Not sure what the connection is to the Bufferbloat project: that is an attempt to reduce overall network latency by cutting down on excessively-large buffers inside various network components.

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Linux Mint Unveils New 'Mintbox Mini Pro' Desktop
by rowan schischka 02 Oct '16

02 Oct '16

Does anyone have a mintbox? I'm quite interested in these small silent devices. Iv seen some bad reviews of devices from aliexpress, there are significant reviews that complain the gigabit ethernet ports cant achieve advertised speeds. If you do have one, specifically a high power (i5/i7) one; can you please share some benchmarking results. Id like to see how CPU thermal throttling under load affects performance. Im thinking theres going to be a limit in CPU frequency, i.e. you wouldn't pay for for the high frequency, high power CPU if it throttles down to a cheaper CPU's performance -- Kind Regards Rowan Schischka

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Multiple Linux Distributions Affected By Crippling Bug In Systemd
by Peter Reutemann 02 Oct '16

02 Oct '16

'System administrator Andrew Ayer has discovered a potentially critical bug in systemd which can bring a vulnerable Linux server to its knees with one command. "After running this command, PID 1 is hung in the pause system call. You can no longer start and stop daemons. inetd-style services no longer accept connections. You cannot cleanly reboot the system." According to the bug report, Debian, Ubuntu, and CentOS are among the distros susceptible to various levels of resource exhaustion. The bug, which has existed for more than two years, does not require root access to exploit.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/16/10/01/2155209 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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Linux Mint Unveils New 'Mintbox Mini Pro' Desktop
by Peter Reutemann 01 Oct '16

01 Oct '16

'It's been 18 months since the original Mintbox Mini launched, and this week saw the release of the new Mintbox Mini Pro (which costs just $100 more). BrianFagioli quotes BetaNews: That extra money gets you a faster processor, more powerful graphics, double the storage, twice the RAM, improved Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and an additional Ethernet port... This diminutive desktop is the same size as the previously-released Mintbox... Thankfully, it retains the same cute appearance and Linux Mint branding. Their article calls it a "beautiful little computer that comes pre-loaded with Linux Mint 18 Cinnamon (64-bit)," and the Linux Mint blog promises this fanless device offers "better passive cooling thanks to an all-metal black housing" -- and comes with six different USB ports.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/16/10/01/0236245 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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