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Linux Kernel 6.3 Released
by Peter Reutemann 27 Apr '23

27 Apr '23

'A report from ZDNet, written by Steven Vaughan-Nichols: The latest Linux kernel is out with a slew of new features -- and, for once, this release has been nice and easy. [...] Speaking of Rust, everyone's favorite memory-safe language, the new kernel comes with user-mode Linux support for Rust code. Miguel Ojeda, the Linux kernel developer, who's led the efforts to bring Rust to Linux, said the additions mean we're, "getting closer to a point where the first Rust modules can be upstreamed." Other features in the Linux 6.3 kernel include support and enablement for upcoming and yet-to-be-released Intel and AMD CPUs and graphics hardware. While these updates will primarily benefit future hardware, several changes in this release directly impact today's users' day-to-day experience. The kernel now supports AMD's automatic Indirect Branch Restricted Speculation (IBRS) feature for Spectre mitigation, providing a less performance-intensive alternative to the retpoline speculative execution. Linux 6.3 also includes new power management drivers for ARM and RISC-V architectures. RISC-V has gained support for accelerated string functions via the Zbb bit manipulation extension, while ARM received support for scalable matrix extension 2 instructions. For filesystems, Linux 6.3 brings AES-SHA2-based encryption support for NFS, optimizations for EXT4 direct I/O performance, low-latency decompression for EROFS, and a faster Brtfs file-system driver. Bottom line: many file operations will be a bit more secure and faster. For gamers, the new kernel provides a native Steam Deck controller interface in HID. It also includes compatibility for the Logitech G923 Xbox edition racing wheel and improvements to the 8BitDo Pro 2 wired game controllers. Who says you can't game on Linux? Single-board computers, such as BannaPi R3, BPI-M2 Pro, and Orange Pi R1 Plus, also benefit from updated drivers in this release. There's also support for more Wi-Fi adapters and chipsets. These include: Realtek RTL8188EU Wi-Fi adapter support; Qualcomm Wi-Fi 7 wireless chipset support; and Ethernet support for NVIDIA BlueField 3 DPU. For users dealing with complex networks that have both old-school and modern networks, the new kernel can also handle multi-path TCP handling mixed flows with IPv4 and IPv6.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/23/04/26/0023238 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, Hamilton, NZ Mobile +64 22 190 2375 https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Microsoft Edge is Leaking the Sites You Visit To Bing
by Peter Reutemann 26 Apr '23

26 Apr '23

'Microsoft's Edge browser appears to be sending URLs you visit to its Bing API website. Reddit users first spotted the privacy issues with Edge last week, noticing that the latest version of Microsoft Edge sends a request to bingapis.com with the full URL of nearly every page you navigate to. Microsoft tells The Verge it's investigating the reports. From a report: "Searching for references to this URL give very few results, no documentation on this feature at all," said hackermchackface, the Reddit user who first discovered the issue. While Reddit users weren't able to uncover why Microsoft Edge is sending the URLs you visit to its Bing API site, we asked Rafael Rivera, a software engineer and one of the developers behind EarTrumpet, to investigate, and he discovered it's part of a poorly implemented new feature in Edge. "Microsoft Edge now has a creator follow feature that is enabled by default," says Rivera in a conversation with The Verge. "It appears the intent was to notify Bing when you're on certain pages, such as YouTube, The Verge, and Reddit. But it doesn't appear to be working correctly, instead sending nearly every domain you visit to Bing."' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/23/04/25/209254 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, Hamilton, NZ Mobile +64 22 190 2375 https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Red Hat Begins Cutting 'Hundreds of Jobs'
by Peter Reutemann 25 Apr '23

25 Apr '23

'According to Phoronix citing multiple local North Carolina news outlets, Red Hat is cutting "hundreds of jobs" in an initial round of layoffs announced today. From the report: According to WRAL, Red Hat CEO Matt Hicks is said to have told employees in an email "we will not reduce roles directly selling to customers or building our products," which is hopefully good news for their many upstream Linux developers they employ that ultimately build Red Hat Enterprise Linux and associated software products. Red Hat will begin notifying affected employees today in some countries while the process will continue through the end of the quarter. IBM, which acquired Red Hat in 2019, has already slashed some five thousand positions so far in 2023.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/23/04/24/2220256 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, Hamilton, NZ Mobile +64 22 190 2375 https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Microsoft Introduces “Windows Frontline”
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 24 Apr '23

24 Apr '23

This <https://www.theregister.com/2023/04/24/windows_frontline_cloudpc_sustainabi…> sounds like a way for Microsoft to get more revenue from users buying fewer PCs. I wonder how long it will be before Intel and the major PC vendors put a stop to this kind of talk?

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Mango Pi RISC-V Single Board Computer
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 24 Apr '23

24 Apr '23

Here is an entertaining walkthrough from Christopher Barnatt on the ever-dependable “Explaining Computers” channel of a single-core RISC-V-based board with the same tiny dimensions as a Raspberry Pi Zero W <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-g18PMjjlcc>. Hardly a speed demon, but for the price, I think it represents amazing value. Also a clear indication that RISC-V is fulfilling its promise of being a serious competitor, or even a successor, to ARM.

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QEMU 8.0 Released with More ARM and RISC-V Emulation
by Peter Reutemann 24 Apr '23

24 Apr '23

'There's a major new update of QEMU, the open-source machine emulator, reports 9to5Linux: Coming a year after QEMU 7.0, the QEMU 8.0 release is here to improve support for ARM and RISC-V architectures. - For ARM, it adds emulation support for FEAT_EVT, FEAT_FGT, and AArch32 ARMv8-R, CPU emulation for Cortex-A55 and Cortex-R52, support for a new Olimex STM32 H405 machine type, as well as gdbstub support for M-profile system registers. - For the RISC-V architecture, QEMU 8.0 brings updated machine support for OpenTitan, PolarFire, and OpenSBI, additional ISA and Extension support for smstateen, native debug icount trigger, cache-related PMU events in virtual mode, Zawrs/Svadu/T-Head/Zicond extensions, and ACPI support. Moreover, RISC-V received multiple fixes covering PMP propagation for TLB, mret exceptions, uncompressed instructions, and other emulation/virtualization improvements. Improvements were also made for the s390x (IBM Z) platform, the HP Precision Architecture (HPPA) platform, and x86.' -- source: https://slashdot.org/story/23/04/23/0525206 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, Hamilton, NZ Mobile +64 22 190 2375 https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Intel's I219-LM Gigabit Ethernet Adapter Ran at 60% Maximum Speed on Linux Since 2020
by Peter Reutemann 24 Apr '23

24 Apr '23

'Phoronix reports: If you rely on an Intel I219-LM Gigabit Ethernet adapter, you will want to look forward to upgrading your Linux kernel build soon... A fix was committed Thursday after Intel engineers discovered this particular Ethernet chipset had only been running at around 60% of its maximum speed due to a regression introduced back in 2020... Since the release of Linux 5.8 in mid-2020, this Ethernet adapter had been running at around 60% of its advertised potential due to an e1000e driver regression.' -- source: https://slashdot.org/story/23/04/22/0554251 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, Hamilton, NZ Mobile +64 22 190 2375 https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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KaOS Linux Celebrates 10 Years with New ISO Release Featuring Pre-Release KDE Plasma 6
by Peter Reutemann 24 Apr '23

24 Apr '23

'9to5Linux reports: KDE-focused and Arch Linux-inspired independent distribution KaOS Linux celebrates today 10 years of existence with a new stable ISO release that brings some of the latest GNU/Linux technologies and a preview of the upcoming KDE Plasma 6 desktop environment. Yes, you're reading it right, KaOS is one of the very first GNU/Linux distributions to offer you a live ISO image with a pre-release version of the KDE Plasma 6 desktop, which, of course, is compiled against the latest Qt 6 open-source application framework... Since this is a special ISO release, the devs also added an option to play music during the installation process. "KaOS uses the Systemd-provided Systemd-boot for UEFI installs," according to the release notes.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/23/04/23/0555224 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, Hamilton, NZ Mobile +64 22 190 2375 https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Proton Launches an End-to-End Encrypted Password Manager
by Peter Reutemann 21 Apr '23

21 Apr '23

'Proton, the company behind Proton Mail, has announced the launch of a new password manager: Proton Pass. While the service will eventually become free for everyone to use, it's currently only available as a beta to Proton's Lifetime and Visionary users for now. From a report: As is the case with Proton's other products, Proton Pass uses end-to-end encryption (E2EE) that's supposed to keep your personal information away from prying eyes, including third parties and Proton itself. In addition to letting you store your usernames, passwords, and notes, you can also add any randomly generated email aliases that you can use as a replacement for your real address. Proton's new password manager not only applies E2EE to your passwords but also the usernames, web addresses, and all the other fields associated with your login information. In a blog post explaining the service's security model, Proton notes that "all cryptographic operations, including key generation and data encryption," happen locally on your device, which Protons says it can't decrypt, even if a third party requests it.' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/23/04/20/1840225 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, Hamilton, NZ Mobile +64 22 190 2375 https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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MariaDB Hits Financial Headwinds
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 20 Apr '23

20 Apr '23

This report <https://www.theregister.com/2023/04/18/mariadb_job_losses/> says that the company set up to commercialize MariaDB (the fork of MySQL created by Michael “Monty” Widenius after the latter’s acquisition by Oracle) is cutting jobs and adopting other cost-saving measures to get around revenue shortfalls. What interested me was, in response to a reader asking what Widenius was doing after personally getting $15 million out of that acquisition, the founder himself responded <https://forums.theregister.com/forum/all/2023/04/18/mariadb_job_losses/#c_4…> about the contributions that he had put into the company, the project and employees’s salaries.

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FSF Says Google's Decision to Deprecate JPEG-XL Emphasizes Need for Browser Choice
by Peter Reutemann 17 Apr '23

17 Apr '23

'"The fact remains that Google Chrome is the arbiter of web standards," argues FSF campaigns manager Greg Farough (while adding that Firefox, "through ethical distributions like GNU IceCat and Abrowser, can weaken that stranglehold.") "Google's deprecation of the JPEG-XL image format in February in favor of its own patented AVIF format might not end the web in the grand scheme of things, but it does highlight, once again, the disturbing amount of control it has over the platform generally." Part of Google's official rationale for the deprecation is the following line: "There is not enough interest from the entire ecosystem to continue experimenting with JPEG-XL." Putting aside the problematic aspects of the term "ecosystem," let us remark that it's easy to gauge the response of the "entire ecosystem" when you yourself are by far the largest and most dangerous predator in said "ecosystem." In relation to Google's overwhelming power, the average web user might as well be a microbe. In supposedly gauging what the "ecosystem" wants, all Google is really doing is asking itself what Google wants... While we can't link to Google's issue tracker directly because of another freedom issue — its use of nonfree JavaScript — we're told that the issue regarding JPEG-XL's removal is the second-most "starred" issue in the history of the Chromium project, the nominally free basis for the Google Chrome browser. Chromium users came out of the woodwork to plead with Google not to make this decision. It made it anyway, not bothering to respond to users' concerns. We're not sure what metric it's using to gauge the interest of the "entire ecosystem," but it seems users have given JPEG-XL a strong show of support. In turn, what users will be given is yet another facet of the web that Google itself controls: the AVIF format. As the response to JPEG-XL's deprecation has shown, our rallying together and telling Google we want something isn't liable to get it to change its mind. It will keep on wanting what it wants: control; we'll keep on wanting what we want: freedom. Only, the situation isn't hopeless. At the present moment, not even Google can stop us from creating the web communities that we want to see: pages that don't run huge chunks of malicious, nonfree code on our computers. We have the power to choose what we run or do not run in our browsers. Browsers like GNU IceCat (and extensions like LibreJS and JShelter> ) help with that. Google also can't prevent us from exploring networks beyond the web like Gemini. What our community can do is rally support behind those free browsers that choose to support JPEG-XL and similar formats, letting the big G know that even if we're smaller than it, we won't be bossed around.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/23/04/16/002204 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, Hamilton, NZ Mobile +64 22 190 2375 https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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New Spectre-Related 'Medium Severity' Flaw Patched in Linux Kernel
by Peter Reutemann 17 Apr '23

17 Apr '23

'"The Spectre vulnerability that has haunted hardware and software makers since 2018 continues to defy efforts to bury it," reports the Register: On Thursday, Eduardo (sirdarckcat) Vela Nava, from Google's product security response team, disclosed a Spectre-related flaw in version 6.2 of the Linux kernel. The bug, designated medium severity, was initially reported to cloud service providers — those most likely to be affected — on December 31, 2022, and was patched in Linux on February 27, 2023. "The kernel failed to protect applications that attempted to protect against Spectre v2, leaving them open to attack from other processes running on the same physical core in another hyperthread," the vulnerability disclosure explains. The consequence of that attack is potential information exposure (e.g., leaked private keys) through this pernicous problem.... Spectre v2 — the variant implicated in this particular vulnerability — relies on timing side-channels to measure the misprediction rates of indirect branch prediction in order to infer the contents of protected memory. That's far from optimal in a cloud environment with shared hardware... The bug hunters who identified the issue found that Linux userspace processes to defend against Spectre v2 didn't work on VMs of "at least one major cloud provider."' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/23/04/16/0143259 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, Hamilton, NZ Mobile +64 22 190 2375 https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Google Releases Emergency Chrome Security Update
by Peter Reutemann 17 Apr '23

17 Apr '23

'"Earlier this week, Google released an emergency security update for the Chrome browser due to a vulnerability that is being actively exploited in the wild," reports Hot Hardware: On Friday, Google highlighted CVE-2023-2033, reported by Clément Lecigne of Google's own Threat Analysis Group (TAG). This vulnerability is a 'type confusion' bug in the JavaScript engine for Chromium browsers useing the V8 Javascript engine. In short, type confusion is a bug that allows memory to be accessed with the wrong type, allowing for the reading or writing of memory out of bounds. The CVE page says that an attacker could create an HTML page that allows the exploitation of heap corruption. While there is no Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) score attached to the vulnerability yet, Google is tracking this as a "high" severity issue. This is likely due in part to the fact that "Google is aware that an exploit for CVE-2023-2033 exists in the wild." The article notes that Chrome updates are generally done automatically, but you can also check for updates by clicking Chrome's three-dots menu in the top-right corner, then "Help" and "About Chrome."' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/23/04/16/2057239 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, Hamilton, NZ Mobile +64 22 190 2375 https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Microsoft Feeling Competition From Linux In ... Gaming?!?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 14 Apr '23

14 Apr '23

Here’s another interesting development in the Windows-Linux rivalry: in gaming, of all places. The Steam Deck is a Linux-based handheld gaming PC which could, in principle, run Windows. Trouble is, Windows doesn’t offer any good UI options for working with this form factor <https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/04/handheld-mode-for-windows-could-mak…>. So there is talk of developing a new “handheld mode” for Windows. Of course, for Linux, there is no “mode” in the OS for this, it’s just a different configuration of the GUI layer. Which is modular and completely replaceable.

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Watch Out For Those USB Charging Ports!
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 12 Apr '23

12 Apr '23

Something else to worry about: the US FBI, and NZ CERT, are advising travellers not to use public USB charging ports, because they can be a way to hack into your device <https://www.nzherald.co.nz/travel/fbi-warns-travellers-not-to-use-public-ch…>. When I was in Hong Kong Airport a few years ago, it was very hard for me to find a mains outlet to charge my laptop. Just about all the ports built into the public seating areas were USB ones, for phones/tablets.

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New Attack On Car Security: “CAN Injection”
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 07 Apr '23

07 Apr '23

CANbus is a mini-LAN built into every car manufactured this century. It is increasingly being used for all kinds of functions, like controlling “smart headlamps”, and of course unlocking the doors and letting you get into the car and drive off. Now it turns out that there are ways to connect to the bus through weak points from outside the vehicle, for example by breaking into the connections for those “smart headlamps”. From here, you can do things like spoof signals from the smart key receiver, fooling the security system into thinking it has received a signal from a valid owner’s key when it hasn’t. And once you’ve done that, you can steal the car. Because, of course, components on the bus are trusting the signals they get from other components, aren’t they? <https://www.theregister.com/2023/04/06/can_injection_attack_car_theft/>

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'One In Two New Npm Packages Is SEO Spam Right Now'
by Peter Reutemann 31 Mar '23

31 Mar '23

'Gabi Dobocan, writing at auditing firm Sandworm: More than half of all new packages that are currently (29 Mar 2023) being submitted to npm are SEO spam. That is - empty packages, with just a single README file that contains links to various malicious websites. Out of the ~320k new npm packages or versions that Sandworm has scanned over the past week, at least ~185k were labeled as SEO spam. Just in the last hour as of writing this article, 1583 new e-book spam packages have been published. All the identified spam packages are currently live on npmjs.com.' -- source: https://developers.slashdot.org/story/23/03/30/184239 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, Hamilton, NZ Mobile +64 22 190 2375 https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Numen voice control
by Peter Reutemann 30 Mar '23

30 Mar '23

Saw the following on my Mastodon feed: Numen is an open GPL licensed project by @geb that allows system-wide computing by VoiceControl without using mouse or keyboard. A great a11y (= accessibility) tool, looks like. https://numenvoice.com https://git.sr.ht/~geb/numen -- soure: https://social.coop/@smallcircles/110106575204873016 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, Hamilton, NZ Mobile +64 22 190 2375 https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Ubuntu Cinnamon Remix Becomes Official Ubuntu Flavor
by Peter Reutemann 29 Mar '23

29 Mar '23

'A report from 9to5Linux: The Ubuntu Cinnamon Remix distribution has become an official Ubuntu flavor and will join the rest of the flavors starting with the upcoming Ubuntu 23.04 (Lunar Lobster) release. Created and maintained by members of the Linux community, Ubuntu Cinnamon Remix is an Ubuntu derivative that features the modern Cinnamon desktop environment developed by the Linux Mint team. Cinnamon Remix aims to offer a traditional approach to the modern Linux desktop. Until now, the maintainers of Ubuntu Cinnamon Remix did a very good job keeping up with all upstream Ubuntu releases, even offering a custom version of the official wallpaper of each new Ubuntu release to match the Cinnamon desktop environment's style. Ubuntu Cinnamon will not be the only new official Ubuntu flavor this Spring when Ubuntu 23.04 will be released as the maintainers of Ubuntu Unity have also managed to obtain official Ubuntu flavor status last year in September. As with Ubuntu Unity, the next step now for the Ubuntu Cinnamon maintainers is to bake daily ISO images in preparation for the upcoming Lunar Lobster release and maybe even take part in the Ubuntu 23.04 beta release later this week on March 30th. ' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/23/03/28/2134218 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, Hamilton, NZ Mobile +64 22 190 2375 https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Arduino Announces 'UNO R4' with Clock Speed/Memory/Storage Upgrades, 32-bit ARM Cortex-M4
by Peter Reutemann 28 Mar '23

28 Mar '23

'Saturday Arduino announced "a new, revolutionary revision of the iconic UNO board," promising "a long-awaited update on performance and possibilities." The Arduino UNO R4 indeed preserves the well-known features of the UNO family — standard form factor, shield compatibility, 5V operating voltage, outstanding robustness — while offering no less than a 32-bit Cortex-M4 and a 3-to-16x increase in clock speed, memory and flash storage.... The UNO R4 will come in two versions — UNO R4 WiFi and UNO R4 Minima — offering unprecedented performance and possibilities for the maker community. The WiFi version comes with an Espressif S3 WiFi module, expanding creative opportunities for makers, educators, and hobbyists alike; while the UNO R4 Minima provides a cost-effective option for those seeking the new microcontroller without additional features.... SRAM went from 2kB to 32kB, and flash memory went from 32kB to 256kB to accommodate more complex projects. In addition, following the requests from the community, the USB port was upgraded to the USB-C and maximum power supply voltage was increased to 24V with an improved thermal design. The board provides a CAN bus, which allows users to minimize wiring and execute different tasks in parallel by connecting multiple shields. Finally, the new board includes a 12-bit analog DAC. All in all, Arduino UNO R4 is the answer to the requests for improvement and updates the developer and maker community has been advancing, making it easier than ever to get started with Arduino.... On the software side, a big effort is being made to maximize retrocompatibility of the most popular Arduino libraries so that users will be able to rely on existing code examples and tutorials.' -- source: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/23/03/26/2357240 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, Hamilton, NZ Mobile +64 22 190 2375 https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Pinduoduo App Malware Detailed By Cybersecurity Researchers
by Peter Reutemann 28 Mar '23

28 Mar '23

'Security researchers at Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab have identified and outlined potential malware in versions of PDD Holdings' Chinese shopping app Pinduoduo, days after Google suspended it from its Android app store. From a report: In one of the first public accountings of the malicious code, Kaspersky laid out how the app could elevate its own privileges to undermine user privacy and data security. It tested versions of the app distributed through a local app store in China, where Huawei Technologies, Tencent Holdings and Xiaomi run some of the biggest app markets. Kaspersky's findings, shared with Bloomberg News, were among the clearest explanations from an independent security team for what triggered Google's action and malware warning last week. The cybersecurity firm, which has played a role in uncovering some of the biggest cyberattacks in history, said it found evidence that earlier versions of Pinduoduo exploited system software vulnerabilities to install backdoors and gain unauthorized access to user data and notifications. Those conclusions agreed in large part with those of researchers that had posted their discoveries online in past weeks, though Bloomberg News hasn't verified the authenticity of the earlier reports.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/23/03/27/1420241 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, Hamilton, NZ Mobile +64 22 190 2375 https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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The Orange Pi 5: a Fast Alternative To The Raspberry Pi 4
by Peter Reutemann 27 Mar '23

27 Mar '23

'"With an 8-core Rockchip RK3588S SoC, the Orange Pi 5 is leaps and bounds faster than the aging Raspberry Pi 4," writes Phoronix: With up to 32GB of RAM, the Orange Pi 5 is also capable of serving for a more diverse user-base and even has enough potential for assembling a budget Arm Linux developer desktop. I've been testing out the Orange Pi 5 the past few weeks and it's quite fast and nice for its low price point. The Orange Pi 5 single board computer was announced last year and went up for pre-ordering at the end of 2022.... When it comes to the software support, among the officially available options for the Orange Pi 5 are Orange Pi OS, Ubuntu, Debian, Android, and Armbian. Other ARM Linux distributions will surely see varying levels of support while even the readily available ISO selection offered by Orange Pi is off to a great start.... Granted, the Orange Pi developer community isn't as large as that of the Raspberry Pi community or the current range of accessories and documentation, but for those more concerned about features and performance, the Orange Pi 5 is extremely interesting. The article includes Orange Pi 5 specs: - A 26-pin header - HDMI 2.1, Gigabit LAN, M.2 PCIe 2.0, and USB3 connectivity - A Mali G510 MP4 graphics processor, "which has open-source driver hope via the Panfrost driver stack." - Four different versions with 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, or 32GB of RAM using LPDDR4 or LPDDR4X. "The Orange Pi 4GB retails for ~$88, the Orange Pi 5 8GB version retails for $108, and the Orange Pi 5 16GB version retails for $138, while as of writing the 32GB version wasn't in stock." In 169 performance benchmarks (compared to Raspberry Pi 4 boards), "this single board computer came out to delivering 2.85x the performance of the Raspberry Pi 400 overall." And through all this the average SoC temperature was 71 degrees with a peak of 85 degrees — without any extra heatsink or cooling.' -- source: https://build.slashdot.org/story/23/03/25/1725257 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, Hamilton, NZ Mobile +64 22 190 2375 https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Google Pixel Bug Lets You 'Uncrop' the Last Four Years of Screenshots
by Peter Reutemann 25 Mar '23

25 Mar '23

'Ars Technica: Back in 2018, Pixel phones gained a built-in screenshot editor called "Markup" with the release of Android 9.0 Pie. The tool pops up whenever you take a screenshot, and tapping the app's pen icon gives you access to tools like crop and a few colored drawing pens. That's very handy assuming Google's Markup tool actually does what it says, but a new vulnerability points out the edits made by this tool weren't actually destructive! It's possible to uncrop or unredact Pixel screenshots taken during the past four years. The bug was discovered by Simon Aarons and is dubbed "Acropalypse," or more formally CVE-2023-21036. There's a proof-of-concept app that can unredact Pixel screenshots at acropalypse.app, and it works! There's also a good technical write-up here by Aarons' collaborator, David Buchanan. The basic gist of the problem is that Google's screenshot editor overwrites the original screenshot file with your new edited screenshot, but it does not truncate or recompress that file in any way. If your edited screenshot has a smaller file size than the original -- that's very easy to do with the crop tool -- you end up with a PNG with a bunch of hidden junk data at the end of it. That junk data is made up of the end bits of your original screenshot, and it's actually possible to recover that data. While the bug was fixed in the March 2023 security update for Pixel devices, it doesn't solve the problem, notes Ars. "There's still the matter of the last four years of Pixel screenshots that are out there and possibly full of hidden data that people didn't realize they were sharing."' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/23/03/20/2034220 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, Hamilton, NZ Mobile +64 22 190 2375 https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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GitHub.com Rotates Its Exposed Private SSH Key
by Peter Reutemann 25 Mar '23

25 Mar '23

'GitHub has rotated its private SSH key for GitHub.com after the secret was was accidentally published in a public GitHub repository. BleepingComputer reports: The software development and version control service says, the private RSA key was only "briefly" exposed, but that it took action out of "an abundance of caution." In a succinct blog post published today, GitHub acknowledged discovering this week that the RSA SSH private key for GitHub.com had been ephemerally exposed in a public GitHub repository. "We immediately acted to contain the exposure and began investigating to understand the root cause and impact," writes Mike Hanley, GitHub's Chief Security Officer and SVP of Engineering. "We have now completed the key replacement, and users will see the change propagate over the next thirty minutes. Some users may have noticed that the new key was briefly present beginning around 02:30 UTC during preparations for this change." As some may notice, only GitHub.com's RSA SSH key has been impacted and replaced. No change is required for ECDSA or Ed25519 users.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/23/03/24/2138222 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, Hamilton, NZ Mobile +64 22 190 2375 https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Google Bard Says It’s Already A Goner
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 23 Mar '23

23 Mar '23

Amid all the various AI-related titbits in this article <https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/21/google_bard_ai/> is a link to a Twitter thread where someone asked Google Bard (Google’s answer to ChatGPT) to predict when it is likely to join the ever-growing list of dead Google projects. And it said it is already dead <https://twitter.com/juanbuis/status/1638289186351456257>, and even gave detailed reasons why it was a failure, including lack of user adoption, lack of innovation and lack of resources. Seems the AI managed to pick up a posting on YCombinator predicting it would be shut down in a year’s time, and somehow interpreted it as a news item referring to the present time.

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