- wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

Knoppix image
by Ian Young 21 Feb '16

21 Feb '16

Hi Peter, Yes, I have the image thanks. ~ Ian Y

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Timeline Of Events: Linux Mint Website Hack That Distributed Malicious ISOs
by Peter Reutemann 21 Feb '16

21 Feb '16

"The Linux Mint website was hacked last night and was pointing to malicious ISOs that contained an IRC bot known as TSUNAMI, used as part of an IRC DDoSing botnet. While the Linux Mint team says they were hacked via their WordPress site, security experts have discovered that their phpBB forum database was put up for sale on the Dark Web at around the same time of the hack. Also, it seems that after the Linux Mint team cleaned their website, the hackers reinfected it, which caused the developers to take it down altogether." -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/16/02/21/1548228 Ouch... Maybe time to switch to a Nikola generated site... 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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knoppix live install
by Ian Young 21 Feb '16

21 Feb '16

If there is some free time at Monday's meeting perhaps we could try an install of what i think is the latest Knoppix iso to USB, live as it happens. ~ Ian Y

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World’s cheapest Android smartphone goes on sale for just $3.67
by Peter Reutemann 20 Feb '16

20 Feb '16

"An Android-based smartphone costing about the same as a cup of coffee has been launched today in India by the local company Ringing Bells. The Freedom 251 costs 251 rupees (about £2.50 or $4), comes with a one-year guarantee, and has surprisingly decent specifications, on paper at least. The phone's price is not subsidised by a carrier contract: it really costs £2.50." -- source: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/02/worlds-cheapest-android-smartphone-g… 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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TP-Link Begins Lockdown of Firmware In Response To FCC
by Peter Reutemann 18 Feb '16

18 Feb '16

'In response to an FCC rule that requires manufacturers to lock down computing devices (routers, PCs, phones) to prevent modification if they have a "modular wireless radio," TP-Link has begun locking down its routers to prevent firmware not signed by TP-Link from being installed. This essentially prevents open source OSs (OpenWRT, for example) from being used on routers.' -- source: http://yro.slashdot.org/story/16/02/18/1423216 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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Stealing Keys From a Laptop In Another Room — and Offline
by Peter Reutemann 18 Feb '16

18 Feb '16

'Motherboard carries a report that with equipment valued at about $3,000, a group of Israeli researchers have been able to extract cryptographic keys from a laptop that is not only separated by a physical wall, but protected by an air gap. This, they say, "is the first time such an approach has been used specifically against elliptic curve cryptography running on a PC." From the article: The method is a so-called side-channel attack: an attack that doesn't tackle an encryption implementation head on, such as through brute force or by exploiting a weakness in the underlying algorithm, but through some other means. In this case, the attack relies on the electromagnetic outputs of the laptop that are emitted during the decryption process, which can then be used to work out the target's key. Specifically, the researchers obtained the private key from a laptop running GnuPG, a popular implementation of OpenPGP. (The developers of GnuPG have since released countermeasures to the method. Tromer said that the changes make GnuPG âoemore resistant to side-channel attack since the sequence of high-level arithmetic operations does not depend on the secret key.â)' -- source: http://it.slashdot.org/story/16/02/18/1626205 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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Meet Linux's Little Brother Zephyr, a Tiny Open Source IoT RTOS
by Peter Reutemann 18 Feb '16

18 Feb '16

"The Linux Foundation has launched the Zephyr Project, to foster an open source, small footprint, modular, scalable, connected, real-time OS for IoT devices. The Zephyr Project's RTOS implements both a small footpoint microkernel and an even tinier nanokernel, and is the result of Wind River contributing its Rocket RTOS kernel to the Zephyr Project. (Wind's Rocket RTOS will now become a downstream commercial distribution based on Zephyr sources.) To get a sense of Zephyr's benefit, its nanokernel is said to be able to run in as little as 10KB of RAM on 32-bit microcontrollers, whereas a minimalistic Linux implementation like uClinux needs upwards of 200KB. The Linux Foundation hopes to see cross-project collaboration between the Zephyr and Linux communities. Technical details are at the Zephyr site." -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/16/02/18/1522219 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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Magnitude of glibc Vulnerability Coming To Light
by Peter Reutemann 18 Feb '16

18 Feb '16

"The glibc vulnerability disclosed this week has some experts on edge because of how DNS can leveraged in exploits. Dan Kaminsky said that while man-in-the-middle attacks are one vector, it would appear that it's also possible to exploit the bug and attack most Linux servers via DNS caching-only servers. 'This would be substantially worse if it went through the caching ecosystem; 99 percent of attack vectors go through that system,' Kaminsky said. Glibc, or the GNU C library, is used by most flavors of Linux and also a number of popular web services and frameworks, giving attacks potentially massive horizontal scale. The major Linux distros have patched and pushed updates to servers; source code is also available for homegrown Linux builds." -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/16/02/18/157239 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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Fwd: [NZLUG] Fwd: [SECURITY] [DSA 3481-1] glibc security update
by Peter Reutemann 18 Feb '16

18 Feb '16

Apologies for cross-posting... Cheers, Peter ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Mark Foster <blakjak(a)blakjak.net> Date: Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 1:50 PM Subject: Re: [NZLUG] Fwd: [SECURITY] [DSA 3481-1] glibc security update To: NZ Linux Users Group <nzlug(a)lists.nzoss.org.nz> And just to illustrate that, CERT is compiling a list of vendor's position statements etc, it's quite a list already: https://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/457759 On 18/02/2016 1:49 p.m., Mark Foster wrote: This is a widespread risk to pretty much every linux based system out there. I hope you're all aware of this one and taking action to patch or protect your systems. -------- Forwarded Message -------- Subject: [SECURITY] [DSA 3481-1] glibc security update Resent-Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2016 14:18:54 +0000 (UTC) Resent-From: debian-security-announce(a)lists.debian.org Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2016 14:18:27 +0000 From: Salvatore Bonaccorso <carnil(a)debian.org> Reply-To: debian-security(a)lists.debian.org To: debian-security-announce(a)lists.debian.org -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA512 - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Debian Security Advisory DSA-3481-1 security(a)debian.org https://www.debian.org/security/ Florian Weimer February 16, 2016 https://www.debian.org/security/faq - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Package : glibc CVE ID : CVE-2015-7547 CVE-2015-8776 CVE-2015-8778 CVE-2015-8779 Debian Bug : 812441 812445 812455 Several vulnerabilities have been fixed in the GNU C Library, glibc. The first vulnerability listed below is considered to have critical impact. CVE-2015-7547 The Google Security Team and Red Hat discovered that the glibc host name resolver function, getaddrinfo, when processing AF_UNSPEC queries (for dual A/AAAA lookups), could mismanage its internal buffers, leading to a stack-based buffer overflow and arbitrary code execution. This vulnerability affects most applications which perform host name resolution using getaddrinfo, including system services. CVE-2015-8776 Adam Nielsen discovered that if an invalid separated time value is passed to strftime, the strftime function could crash or leak information. Applications normally pass only valid time information to strftime; no affected applications are known. CVE-2015-8778 Szabolcs Nagy reported that the rarely-used hcreate and hcreate_r functions did not check the size argument properly, leading to a crash (denial of service) for certain arguments. No impacted applications are known at this time. CVE-2015-8779 The catopen function contains several unbound stack allocations (stack overflows), causing it the crash the process (denial of service). No applications where this issue has a security impact are currently known. While it is only necessary to ensure that all processes are not using the old glibc anymore, it is recommended to reboot the machines after applying the security upgrade. For the stable distribution (jessie), these problems have been fixed in version 2.19-18+deb8u3. For the unstable distribution (sid), these problems will be fixed in version 2.21-8. We recommend that you upgrade your glibc packages. Further information about Debian Security Advisories, how to apply these updates to your system and frequently asked questions can be found at: https://www.debian.org/security/ Mailing list: debian-security-announce(a)lists.debian.org -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1 iQIcBAEBCgAGBQJWwy2KAAoJEAVMuPMTQ89EIIIP/1Sa7Mlc0xJ0b4v5QFf1UL1N zLPxw/JXbExR1sX9RUt8mCzdOoz5rcwaR8yyvGZS0A+NwtSgLr3sNKweMrrf3yaH Ul7vziRfgcNjnWdN5+aeHp+lIUEIgCbT6JJVqt/lfXO8/vo23V2EZKVTtnNt7oR6 FmhSW73+jt8v9qxdHVDhE0ivXhs7Neeo7oLfolAX9n+ZFjRhT68ERRTyPaq3dnfS PdDLdnn5V+g+3y9zjurGNvmSp7OcOq7aKclEFtQBoEF6ZFmqhUYkuOmAkhlQlMMX nJGqZYrY2pgz1pHZZXJGY31WIYDaYR0cSIoe/c49ejT+Kug9IMLBMruvwAglX+gd IAFflJ8Iar9StiPwMz3HloLbNT1vVCvlvdbEJiMrgpTMRUyacG6GfHVid2tso+n7 ZpWnxI2B62lwJU/Jq2yxRkIVtGs9go7lvGEmUs/T4Pl87otULBAfGD0xXtt2vY+A hrEbjCgNMrbrjiCdm/w2MW+hLwiXgRn617Q7w9e5gWnSjIEpybrrwKAR1QsDxxNM zwjgwQdTEivJ5dtXQdwkHg+2ba1/gqKqMU9b0rlBf/YF0e73I/FTaDu1nEgOX4En kq6ZwrPBlptv0kCR0EtyX6xmt4Q3j8tF1IwPyEwfiyPKcN0cxuk7LLILc7ewPnGU pPKkk9EqhPWAP7+Ufo9p =lzjt -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ NZLUG mailing list NZLUG(a)lists.nzoss.org.nz http://lists.nzoss.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/nzlug _______________________________________________ NZLUG mailing list NZLUG(a)lists.nzoss.org.nz http://lists.nzoss.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/nzlug -- 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 OS distro for regular PCs can now dual-boot with Windows
by Peter Reutemann 18 Feb '16

18 Feb '16

"Today, Neverware announced a new version of CloudReady aimed at schools and individuals who want to try the software on their PCs without losing the capability to run Windows. CloudReady version 45.3 can be installed on any system with an existing UEFI-mode installation of Windows 7, 8, or 10 and 32GB of free disk space. You can find detailed installation directions on Neverware's site." -- source: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/02/chrome-os-distro-for-regular-pcs-can… 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 Being Ordered To Help Break Into San Bernardino Shooter’s Phone
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 17 Feb '16

17 Feb '16

It is being widely reported in the news that a judge has told Apple to give investigators access to encrypted data on an Iphone belonging to one of the perpetrators in the San Bernardino shooting case. Current versions of IOS do not allow Apple to break this encryption. However, it seems Apple is actually being asked to help bypass the feature that autowipes the phone after 10 failed attempts to enter the decryption key, thereby allowing the key to be broken by brute force. This feature is supposed to be under the control of the owner of the phone, not Apple. But what Apple can give, it can take away. It may be possible that Apple could load a software update (perhaps a temporary one) into the phone to override control of this feature. <https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160216/17393733617/no-judge-did-not-jus… backdoor.shtml>

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Backblaze Report On Hard Drive Failures In 2015
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 17 Feb '16

17 Feb '16

Backblaze has posted another report on the reliability of their hard drives <https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-reliability-q4-2015/>. As pointed out in the Ars Technica analysis <http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/02/hgst-hard-disks-still…>, HGST is owned by WD, so WD is simultaneously responsible for the most and least reliable brands of drives in the report. An overall statistic of 6% failure rate per year seems a reasonable conclusion. Also it seems like 3-4TB is still the sweet spot.

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WLUG meeting next Monday
by Peter Reutemann 17 Feb '16

17 Feb '16

Hi everyone We have a meeting coming up next Monday: "Peter Reutemann will demo Alpine Linux, a security-oriented, lightweight Linux distribution based on musl libc and busybox. Discussion of March meeting: potential introduction to git version control, in conjunction with CS^3 student society from Computer Science. Discussion of meetup.com's new pricing strategy: going up from USD 12 per 6 months to USD 29.94 per 6 months. Feel like demoing another distro? Or some other great open-source tool (doesn't necessarily have to be Linux)? Then let me know." http://www.meetup.com/WaikatoLinuxUsersGroup/events/228718557/ 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 Warnings In GCC 6
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 16 Feb '16

16 Feb '16

Couple of interesting blog posts <https://gnu.wildebeest.org/blog/mjw/2016/02/15/looking-forward-to-gcc6-many…>, <https://gnu.wildebeest.org/blog/mjw/2016/01/09/looking-forward-to-gcc6-nice…> about new dubious-looking constructs that the GCC 6 C and C++ compilers can pick up. I particularly like the latter, which warns against a situation like the following: if (cond) statement_guarded_by_cond; statement_not_guarded_by_cond; /* though it may look like it is */ Of course, this only works in a language that allows the redundancy of having both bracketing symbols and indentation. This is why trying to get rid of one, and having the other do duty for both--is such a bad idea.

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UEFI aka Ooof!!y links - more than a lifetime to know
by Ian Young 13 Feb '16

13 Feb '16

Following a recent refererence to the dread Oofy at a LUG meeting and after looking at a couple of Intel PC type machines using this boot method I am pretty well totally baffled. The people of Arch however know it all. Or as much as can be known. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Unified_Extensible_Firmware_Interface#… I seem to have a vague recollection that Sun once used Ooofy. And Apple of course was an early adopter. Or am I thinking of Open Firmware? Somewhat related. Hmmm. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Extensible_Firmware_Interface https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Firmware

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The Truth Behind “true”
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 11 Feb '16

11 Feb '16

Among the many useful commands you will find as standard on any POSIX system is “true”. This command does absolutely nothing, but returns a successful exit status. (There is also “false”, which also does nothing, but always returns a failure status. If anyone is curious as to how you would make use of these in shell scripts, just ask.) This page <http://trillian.mit.edu/~jc/humor/ATT_Copyright_true.html> gives the history of the “true” command from the original AT&T Unix--it was essentially a shell script that did absolutely nothing at all. Yet AT&T claimed copyright on it. This article <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/02/10/line_break_ep2/> includes, among its examples of supposedly bad code, the full source of the GNU “true” program (which actually also shares its source with the “false” program), which runs to 80 lines, as compared to the version from OpenBSD, which is just four lines (including a blank line and comments). But as pointed out in the previous link, the GNU version uses less memory and runs faster.

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San Francisco To Open-Source Its Voting Software
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 11 Feb '16

11 Feb '16

The San Francisco Elections Commission has resolved to “support the development and certification of an open source voting system running on commercial off-the-shelf hardware; and to request that the Mayor and Board of Supervisors initiate and fund a project to develop and certify such a system for use in San Francisco”. <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/02/10/san_francisco_to_open_source_voting…> Contrast this with ongoing unsuccessful attempts to get access to the software used for Australian federal elections under its Freedom Of Information Act <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/12/13/aec_easycount_foi_decision/>: [Hobart lawyer Michael] Cordover sought the source code because Australia's 2013 election produced some irregularities. What software do we use in NZ?

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Docker Images To Be Based On Alpine Linux
by Peter Reutemann 07 Feb '16

07 Feb '16

"Docker container sizes continue a race to the bottom with a couple of environments weighing in at less than 10MB. Following on the heels of this week's story regarding small images based on Alpine Linux, it appears that the official Docker images will be moving from Debian/Ubuntu to Alpine Linux in the near future. How low will they go?" -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/16/02/06/0433228 Alpine Linux is rather small, coming in at 82MB as ISO download: http://www.alpinelinux.org/ Anybody feel like giving a demo at the next meeting? 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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Open Source Pioneer Michael Tiemann On the Myth of the Average
by Peter Reutemann 03 Feb '16

03 Feb '16

'In a recent article, Michael Tiemann, one of the world's first open source entrepreneurs and VP of Open Source Affairs at Red Hat, highlights an example from the 1950s US Air Force where the "myth of the average resulted in a generation of planes that almost no pilots could reliably fly, and which killed as many as 17 pilots in a single day." He uses this example to argue that IT leaders who think that playing it safe means being as average as possible in order to avoid risks (i.e. "Buy what others are buying. Deploy what others are deploying. Manage what others are managing.") may be making IT procurement and strategy decisions based on flawed data. Instead, Tiemann says that IT leaders should understand elements of differentiation that are most valuable, and then adopt the standards that exploit them. "Don't aim for average: it may not exist. Aim for optimal, and use the power of open source to achieve what uniquely benefits your organization."' -- source: http://it.slashdot.org/story/16/02/03/177233 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 Hack Shrinks Docker Containers
by Peter Reutemann 03 Feb '16

03 Feb '16

'Promising "uber tiny Docker images for all the things," Iron.io has released a new library of base images for every major language optimized to be as small as possible by using only the required OS libraries and language dependencies. "By streamlining the cruft that is attached to the node images and installing only the essentials, they reduced the image from 644 MB to 29MB,"explains one technology reporter, noting this makes it quicker to download and distribute the image, and also more secure. "Less code/less programs in the container means less attack surface..." writes Travis Reeder, the co-founder of Iron.io, in a post on the company's blog. "Most people who start using Docker will use Docker's official repositories for their language of choice, but unfortunately if you use them, you'll end up with images the size of the Empire State Building..."' -- source: http://developers.slashdot.org/story/16/02/03/221231 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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Chromodo Browser Disables Key Web Security
by Peter Reutemann 03 Feb '16

03 Feb '16

"A Google Security Research update has claimed that Comodo's internet browser Chromodo, based on the open-source project Chromium, contains significant security failings and puts its users at risk. This week's Google alert suggested that the Chromodo browser – available as a standalone download, as well as part of the company's Security package – is less secure than it promises. According to analysis, the browser is disabling the Same Origin policy, hijacking DNS settings, and replacing shortcuts with Chromodo links, among other security violations." -- source: http://it.slashdot.org/story/16/02/03/1416236 NB: I know that the browser is for Windows, but you might know someone who's using it, blindly trusting the marketing of Comodo. Chromium builds are available here: https://www.chromium.org/getting-involved/dev-channel 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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Crypto flaw was so glaring it may be intentional eavesdropping backdoor
by Peter Reutemann 03 Feb '16

03 Feb '16

"Socat is a more feature-rich variant of the once widely used Netcat networking service for fixing bugs in network applications and for finding and exploiting security vulnerabilities. One of its features allows data to be transmitted through an encrypted channel to prevent it from being intercepted by people monitoring the traffic. Amazingly, when using the Diffie-Hellman method to establish a cryptographic key, Socat used a non-prime parameter to negotiate the key, an omission that violates one of the most basic cryptographic principles." -- source: http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/02/crypto-flaw-was-so-glaring-it-may-b… 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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Fwd: [NZOSS OpenChat] TPPA appears to compromise NZ data sovereignty
by Peter Reutemann 02 Feb '16

02 Feb '16

Apologies for cross-posting. Cheers, Peter ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Dave Lane <president(a)nzoss.org.nz> Date: Wed, Feb 3, 2016 at 10:22 AM Subject: [NZOSS OpenChat] TPPA appears to compromise NZ data sovereignty To: NZOSS Open Chat List <openchat(a)groups.nzoss.org.nz> Hi all, Thanks to Grant Paton-Simpson for bringing clause 14.13.2 of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement to my attention... I've just written a quick post to explain the potential implications of it, as I see it: https://nzoss.org.nz/content/tppa-compromises-nz-data-sovereignty Any comments or corrections (or alternative interpretations) to the article would be appreciated. If you think it is a cause for concern, I encourage you to promote it, particularly among those who will understand the implications. The TPPA is slated for signing tomorrow. We need to make a BIG stink about this very unfortunate turn of events. Cheers, Dave -- Dave Lane, President, New Zealand Open Source Society e: president(a)nzoss.org.nz m: 021 229 8147 w: http://nzoss.org.nz ―― View topic http://groups.nzoss.org.nz/r/topic/7bw4I2juaLBbCQycHlZriA Leave group mailto:openchat(a)groups.nzoss.org.nz?subject=Unsubscribe Start groups https://OnlineGroups.net -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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The State Of Blender: “The Art Of Open Source”
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 02 Feb '16

02 Feb '16

An article <https://www.blender.org/media-exposure/the-art-of-open-source/> written for the November 2015 issue of “Linux Format” magazine covers the origins and increasing popularity of Blender. But more than popularity, it seems it is now (somewhat grudgingly) winning actual respect among 3D artists. Pixar even lists Blender as one of the packages it officially supports in the latest release of RenderMan. My main beef with the article is the writer keeps saying “commercial” when he means “proprietary”, seemingly reserving the use of “proprietary” for when he means “in-house”. If you don’t think Blender can be “commercial”, just look at some of its users mentioned in the article. A quote from one of those users: “In 10 years of using proprietary 3D software, we never received usable support from either software vendor or reseller – except on problems with registering our licences.”

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Classic Linux Joke Even Less Funny Than Previously Thought
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 02 Feb '16

02 Feb '16

On some UEFI-based systems, the old “rm -rf /” trick for destroying your system may do more than annihilate your software installation, it may also brick your machine. This is because it is possible to mount a virtual kernel filesystem that gives access to persistent UEFI configuration data read/write, and deleting this data makes it impossible for your machine to boot. <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/02/02/delete_efivars_linux/>

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