- wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

Let Sudo Insult You When You Enter Incorrect Password
by Peter Reutemann 24 Jul '25

24 Jul '25

Add some spice to your incorrect password attempts! :-) 'Sudoers is the default sudo security policy plugin in Linux; however, experienced system administrators can specify a custom security policy as well as input and output logging plugins. It is driven by the /etc/sudoers file or, alternatively by LDAP. You can define sudoers options like the insults option or several others in the file /etc/sudoers. It is set under the Defaults entries section. [...] In this article, we will explain a sudoers configuration parameter to enable an individual or system administrator to set sudo command to insult system users who enter the wrong password.' -- source: https://www.tecmint.com/sudo-insult-when-enter-wrong-password/ Cheers, Peter

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FossFLOW - Isometric Diagramming Tool
by Peter Reutemann 23 Jul '25

23 Jul '25

Just came across FossFLOW: 'FossFLOW is a powerful, open-source Progressive Web App (PWA) for creating beautiful isometric diagrams. Built with React and the Isoflow (Now forked and published to NPM as fossflow) library, it runs entirely in your browser with offline support.' You can try it out here: https://stan-smith.github.io/FossFLOW/ Maybe something to consider next time you create a diagram? :-) -- code: https://github.com/stan-smith/FossFLOW -- source: https://mastodon.social/@nixCraft/114897260096883374 Cheers, Peter

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Microsoft's Secure Boot UEFI Bootloader Signing Key Expires In September, Posing Problems For Linux Users
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 23 Jul '25

23 Jul '25

If I understand this article right <https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/cyber-security/microsoft-signing…>, there is a signing key stored in the flash RAM of PCs, issued by Microsoft, which is used to sign a “shim” that allows third-party Linux distros to boot. However, that key is due to expire this September. Microsoft issued an updated key two years ago, but that key may not be widely installed as yet. This leaves it up to PC/OEM vendors to issue updates to the flash RAM on their motherboards, which is not something that can be taken for granted. I’m not the only one wondering whether Secure Boot is worth the hassle: It's easy to see the appeal of Secure Boot—making it more difficult to install bootkits should be a net positive. However, the looming hassle of dealing with this expiring key is just the latest in a series of frustrations that encourage people to either stick with Windows or disable Secure Boot entirely. Right now, many people opt for the former, but will that continue to be the case as the popularity of other platforms rises ahead of Windows 10's demise? And is Secure Boot, as it currently exists, prepared for that shift?

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filestash
by Peter Reutemann 22 Jul '25

22 Jul '25

Just came across "filestash": 'A Dropbox-like file manager that let you manage your data anywhere it is located: FTP • FTPS • SFTP • WebDAV • Git • S3 • NFS • SMB • Artifactory • LDAP • Mysql • Storj • CardDAV • CalDAV • Backblaze B2 • Minio • Dropbox • Google Drive' Sounds like an interesting and useful tool! -- github: https://github.com/mickael-kerjean/filestash -- source: https://mastodon.social/@nixCraft/114893327737674577 Cheers, Peter

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Actively exploited vulnerability gives extraordinary control over server fleets
by Peter Reutemann 21 Jul '25

21 Jul '25

'Hackers are exploiting a maximum-severity vulnerability that has the potential to give them complete control over thousands of servers, many of which handle mission-critical tasks inside data centers, the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency is warning. The vulnerability, carrying a severity rating of 10 out of a possible 10, resides in the AMI MegaRAC, a widely used firmware package that allows large fleets of servers to be remotely accessed and managed even when power is unavailable or the operating system isn't functioning. These motherboard-attached microcontrollers, known as baseboard management controllers (BMCs), give extraordinary control over servers inside data centers. Administrators use BMCs to reinstall operating systems, install or modify apps, and make configuration changes to large numbers of servers without physically being on premises and, in many cases, without the servers being turned on. Successful compromise of a single BMC can be used to pivot into internal networks and compromise all other BMCs. CVE-2024-54085, as the vulnerability is tracked, allows for authentication bypasses by making a simple web request to a vulnerable BMC device over HTTP. The vulnerability was discovered by security firm Eclypsium and disclosed in March. The disclosure included proof-of-concept exploit code allowing a remote attacker to create an admin account without providing any authentication. At the time of the disclosure, there were no known reports of the vulnerability being actively exploited. On Wednesday, CISA added CVE-2024-54085 to its list of vulnerabilities known to be exploited in the wild. The notice provided no further details.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/security/2025/06/active-exploitation-of-ami-managem… Cheers, Peter

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KDE's Android TV Alternative, Plasma Bigscreen, Rises From the Dead
by Peter Reutemann 16 Jul '25

16 Jul '25

'Plasma Bigscreen, KDE's TV-focused interface, is being revived after years of inactivity thanks to contributor Devin, who overhauled the UI, redesigned the Settings app, improved app launching, and updated key modules. While still in progress -- with features like HDMI-CEC remote support and a virtual keyboard pending -- the project aims to rejoin KDE's official Plasma release schedule, potentially in version 6.5. Neowin reports: If you have not heard of it, Plasma Bigscreen is a Plasma shell for televisions, with original support for the now-defunct Mycroft AI assistant. It used to provide a simple launcher for apps and custom "Mycroft Skills" before development stalled, causing most distributions to drop it. The project was left behind during the big transition to Plasma 6 last year because no one had ported it in time for the megarelease. After a friend of his started poking at the code, Devin stepped in to tackle the much-needed work. [...] For anyone who wants to test this out, you can do as Devin did by installing Plasma Bigscreen on a Raspberry Pi using postmarketOS, though you would have to compile it yourself or pull from the nightly repos to get the latest changes. Applications like Kodi and VacuumTube (smart TV version of YouTube) work well with remote navigation, and some games like SuperTuxKart are playable. Controller support exists, but getting TV remotes to work over HDMI CEC is still untested. The project is far from finished; it still needs an arrow-navigable virtual keyboard and a clearer long-term direction now that Mycroft is gone. Still, the goal is to get it back into the official Plasma release schedule, possibly for version 6.5. ' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/07/15/1956221 Cheers, Peter

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Browser Extensions Turn Nearly 1 Million Browsers Into Website-Scraping Bots
by Peter Reutemann 10 Jul '25

10 Jul '25

'Over 240 browser extensions with nearly a million total installs have been covertly turning users' browsers into web-scraping bots. "The extensions serve a wide range of purposes, including managing bookmarks and clipboards, boosting speaker volumes, and generating random numbers," reports Ars Technica. "The common thread among all of them: They incorporate MellowTel-js, an open source JavaScript library that allows developers to monetize their extensions." Ars Technica reports: Some of the data swept up in the collection free-for-all included surveillance videos hosted on Nest, tax returns, billing invoices, business documents, and presentation slides posted to, or hosted on, Microsoft OneDrive and Intuit.com, vehicle identification numbers of recently bought automobiles along with the names and addresses of the buyers, patient names and the doctors they saw, travel itineraries hosted on Priceline, Booking.com, and airline websites, Facebook Messenger attachments and Facebook photos, even when the photos were set to be private. The dragnet also collected proprietary information belonging to Tesla, Blue Origin, Amgen, Merck, Pfizer, Roche, and dozens of other companies. Tuckner said in an email Wednesday that the most recent status of the affected extensions is: - Of 45 known Chrome extensions, 12 are now inactive. Some of the extensions were removed for malware explicitly. Others have removed the library. - Of 129 Edge extensions incorporating the library, eight are now inactive. - Of 71 affected Firefox extensions, two are now inactive. Some of the inactive extensions were removed for malware explicitly. Others have removed the library in more recent updates. A complete list of extensions found by Tuckner is here.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/07/09/2257245 Cheers, Peter

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AMD Warns of New Meltdown, Spectre-like Bugs Affecting CPUs
by Peter Reutemann 10 Jul '25

10 Jul '25

'AMD is warning users of a newly discovered form of side-channel attack affecting a broad range of its chips that could lead to information disclosure. Register: Akin to Meltdown and Spectre, the Transient Scheduler Attack (TSA) comprises four vulnerabilities that AMD said it discovered while looking into a Microsoft report about microarchitectural leaks. The four bugs do not appear too venomous at face value -- two have medium-severity ratings while the other two are rated "low." However, the low-level nature of the exploit's impact has nonetheless led Trend Micro and CrowdStrike to assess the threat as "critical." The reasons for the low severity scores are the high degree of complexity involved in a successful attack -- AMD said it could only be carried out by an attacker able to run arbitrary code on a target machine. It affects AMD processors (desktop, mobile and datacenter models), including 3rd gen and 4th gen EPYC chips -- the full list is here.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/07/09/1835230 Cheers, Peter

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GIMP 3.2 Promises New Paint Mode, Support for Importing Photoshop Patterns
by Peter Reutemann 04 Jul '25

04 Jul '25

'GIMP 3.2 promises new features like theme colors for Brush, Font, and Palette, a new paint blend mode called Overwrite that lets you directly replace the pixels over the area you paint, a new setting in the text tool to control the direction of the text outline, and automatic match of Linux and Windows OS themes. It also promises support for using ART (AnotherRawTherapee) as a Camera Raw loader, a new option to export to Krita‘s .kpl palette format, support for importing Photoshop patterns, as well as support for using presets from Photoshop’s Curves and Levels filters in GIMP’s Curves and Levels filters. In addition, GIMP 3.2 will bring initial support for exporting Photoshop Large format (PSB) files, support for importing APNG animations, support for loading multi-layer OpenEXR images, support for importing and exporting JPEG 2000 images, and support for loading and exporting Sony Playstation 1 TIM textures and images. But wait, that’s not all because GIMP 3.2 also promises support for importing Nokia’s historical black and white Over-the-Air Bitmap format, support for importing the GIF variant known as Jeff’s Image Format (.jif), and support for importing Advanced Video Coding (AVCI) still images. Among other noteworthy changes, GIMP 3.2 promises to improve non-destructive editing, update the CMYK Color Selector to calculate and display the Total Ink Coverage of the selected color, and implement a new API to create a GimpCoordinates widget in the auto-generated dialog.' -- source: https://9to5linux.com/gimp-3-2-promises-new-paint-mode-support-for-importin… Cheers, Peter

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Let's Encrypt Rolls Out Free Security Certs For IP Addresses
by Peter Reutemann 04 Jul '25

04 Jul '25

'Let's Encrypt, a certificate authority (CA) known for its free TLS/SSL certificates, has begun issuing digital certificates for IP addresses. From a report: It's not the first CA to do so. PositiveSSL, Sectigo, and GeoTrust all offer TLS/SSL certificates for use with IP addresses, at prices ranging from $40 to $90 or so annually. But Let's Encrypt does so at no cost. For those with a static IP address who want to host a website, an IP address certificate provides a way to offer visitors a secure connection with that numeric identifier while avoiding the nominal expense of a domain name.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/07/03/1452239 Cheers, Peter

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Linux’s Remarkable Journey From One Dev's Hobby To 40 Million Lines Of Code - And Counting
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 03 Jul '25

03 Jul '25

A retrospective <https://www.zdnet.com/article/linuxs-remarkable-journey-from-one-devs-hobby…> on how the Linux kernel project got to where it is today. Quotes: “We're always building on the kernel, despite the fact that a lot of things were happening in the world over these three decades. We had the dotcom crash in 2000. We had the SCO lawsuit. In 2008, there was the global economic crisis. And of course, we had the COVID pandemic. But you don't really see an effect on the development speed of Linux from any of these events. We have somehow managed to sustain everything we can do despite all the stuff that has happened in the world.” ... Of course, for years, no one took Linux seriously. It was dismissed as a toy in an era when Unix fragmentation and the rise of Windows NT dominated industry thinking. The prevailing wisdom held that only large corporations could build operating system kernels, leaving little attention for a community-driven initiative. Yet, as Corbet noted, Linux exemplified Clayton Christensen's concept of disruptive innovation: a technology dismissed as inferior that quietly matures until it overtakes established players. Why did the BSDs lose their early lead? Another factor, Corbet explained, was that in the early 1990s, the BSD Unix systems were much more mature than Linux; they were capable of doing more and were more usable. Still, their permissive BSD license model led to a whole bunch of forks. None of them gained the critical mass in terms of either the development community or adoption to dominate Linux. Instead, the Linux kernel stayed one thing. It stayed together, in part because its GPLv2 copyright policy meant everybody retains their copyright under the same license. Some other open-source projects (including GNU) insist that contributors sign a “Contributor Licence Agreement”, turning over their copyright to some official body in charge of the project. The Linux kernel does not, and there are others that don’t.

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PNG Spec, 3rd Edition, Is Out
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 27 Jun '25

27 Jun '25

There is has been a major update to the specification for the PNG (“Portable Network Graphics”) file-format spec <https://www.programmax.net/articles/png-is-back/>, 20 years on from the previous edition. New features include support for high-dynamic-range colour gamuts, using a new metadata entry type that is much more compact than a full embedded ICC colour profile, and the official acceptance of the APNG format for animating a sequence of images within a single PNG file.

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Lyon Abandons Microsoft Office To Strengthen 'Digital Sovereignty'
by Peter Reutemann 26 Jun '25

26 Jun '25

'The City of Lyon will replace Microsoft's office suite with free office software, including OnlyOffice for office work and Linux and PostgreSQL for systems and databases. The city aims to "no longer be dependent on American software solutions and acquire true digital sovereignty," according to an official statement. ' -- source: https://slashdot.org/story/25/06/25/1757229 Great to see that the digital sovereignty movement gaining momentum, if only down-under as well... Cheers, Peter

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Mozilla Formally Discontinues Its DeepSpeech Project
by Peter Reutemann 26 Jun '25

26 Jun '25

'One of the interesting projects engaged in by Mozilla that directly wasn't related to their web browser efforts was DeepSpeech, an embedded/offline speech-to-text engine. To not much surprise given the lack of activity in recent years, last week they finally and formally discontinued the open-source project. Mozilla DeepSpeech was a promising speech-to-text engine with great performance for real-time communication even when running on Raspberry Pi SBCs and other low-power systems.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/06/25/1851201 It's hard to compete with other publicly available models like OpenAI's whisper, which are really, really good. Cheers, Peter

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Ubuntu To Disable Intel Graphics Security Mitigations To Boost GPU Performance By Up To 20%
by Peter Reutemann 24 Jun '25

24 Jun '25

'Disabling Intel graphics security mitigations in GPU compute stacks for OpenCL and Level Zero can yield a performance boost of up to 20%, prompting Ubuntu's Canonical and Intel to disable these mitigations in future Ubuntu packages. Phoronix's Michael Larabel reports: Intel does allow building their GPU compute stack without these mitigations by using the "NEO_DISABLE_MITIGATIONS" build option and that is what Canonical is looking to set now for Ubuntu packages to avoid the significant performance impact. This work will likely all be addressed in time for Ubuntu 25.10. This NEO_DISABLE_MITIGATIONS option is just for compiling the Intel Compute Runtime stack and doesn't impact the Linux kernel security mitigations or else outside of Intel's "NEO" GPU compute stack. Both Intel and Canonical are in agreement with this move and it turns out that even Intel's GitHub binary packages for their Compute Runtime for OpenCL and Level Zero ship with the mitigations disabled due to the performance impact. This Ubuntu Launchpad bug report for the Intel Compute Runtime notes some of the key takeaways. There is also this PPA where Ubuntu developers are currently testing their Compute Runtime builds with NEO_DISABLE_MITIGATIONS enabled for disabling the mitigations.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/06/23/2046259 Cheers, Peter

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WebVM
by Peter Reutemann 24 Jun '25

24 Jun '25

Just came across this project on my Mastodon feed: 'WebVM is a server-less virtual environment running fully client-side in HTML5/WebAssembly. It's designed to be Linux ABI-compatible. It runs an unmodified Debian distribution including many native development toolchains. WebVM is powered by the CheerpX virtualization engine, and enables safe, sandboxed client-side execution of x86 binaries on any browser. CheerpX includes an x86-to-WebAssembly JIT compiler, a virtual block-based file system, and a Linux syscall emulator.' -- github: https://github.com/leaningtech/webvm -- mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@nixCraft/114735683692335386 Cheers, Peter

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How The Grateful Dead Built The Internet
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 23 Jun '25

23 Jun '25

Here’s an interesting piece, from the BBC of all places, about the role that a hippie band that started in the 1960s went on to play in the culture of the early Internet <https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250618-how-the-grateful-dead-shaped-so…>. Not only were their stage shows technology-heavy, but they somehow managed to attract a major following among technologists of all kinds. Among the other members of that milieu was Steward Brand, creator of the Whole Earth Catalog, a resource for those looking for tools to help them live a simpler life, less dominated by faceless corporates and promoting more intimate, personal power. Quote from the introduction: “We are as gods and might as well get used to it.” Brand went on to co-found the WELL, aka the “Whole Earth ’Lectronic Link”, which started out as a BBS with users connecting via dialup lines, before becoming an Internet-connected service -- one of the earliest examples, if not *the* earliest example, of “social media”, if you will. John Perry Barlow, one of the lyricists for the Grateful Dead, got heavily involved in the WELL and then went on to found the Electronic Frontier Foundation, dedicated to the preservation of free speech and other civil rights in the online world.

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OpenPGP Versus GnuPG
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 23 Jun '25

23 Jun '25

It seems the developers of GnuPG are starting to diverge from the OpenPGP standard, and go their own, incompatible way. I got notes about this from the last few upgrades of my Debian Unstable systems, and so searching about online led me (yet again) to the ever-dependable ArchLinux Wiki <https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/GnuPG>, which has a section on “OpenPGP compatibility”, with links to more details about the schism. So the Debian folks seem reluctant to go along with this, and they’re not the only ones.

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Bill Gates Gets To Meet The Famous Linus Torvalds
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 23 Jun '25

23 Jun '25

Did you know, Torvalds and Gates had never met before <https://www.theverge.com/news/690815/bill-gates-linus-torvalds-meeting-photo>. The third older guy with them is Dave Cutler, mastermind of Windows NT. Not sure if he was the one responsible for putting in drive letters and all those “reserved” file names or not.

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The Kubuntu Focus Team Announces The M2 GEN 6
by Peter Reutemann 16 Jun '25

16 Jun '25

'The Kubuntu Focus team has some exciting news to share. We have launched the sixth generation of the flagship M2 laptop, featuring the Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX CPU with 24 threads, Nvidia® GeForce® RTX 50-series GPUs, and many more upgrades. See more about this laptop in the press release, and see the press photos here!' -- source: https://www.einpresswire.com/article/820847974/kubuntu-focus-announces-the-… -- photos: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1mTmiw5HuJ8XkJ_yqy-R9YT-BqD-lmG3D Cheers, Peter

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Denmark Is Dumping Microsoft Office and Windows For LibreOffice and Linux
by Peter Reutemann 13 Jun '25

13 Jun '25

'ZDNet reports: Denmark's Minister of Digitalization, Caroline Stage, has announced that the Danish government will start moving away from Microsoft Office to LibreOffice. Why? It's not because open-source is better, although I would argue that it is, but because Denmark wants to claim "digital sovereignty." In the States, you probably haven't heard that phrase, but in the European Union, digital sovereignty is a big deal and getting bigger. A combination of security, economic, political, and societal imperatives is driving the EU's digital sovereignty moves. EU leaders are seeking to reduce Europe's dependence on foreign technology providers, primarily those from the United States, and to assert greater control over its digital infrastructure, data, and technological future. Why? Because they're concerned about who controls European data, who sets the rules, and who can potentially cut off access to essential services in times of geopolitical tension. "Money issues have also played a decisive role," writes ZDNet's Steven Vaughan-Nichols. "Copenhagen's Microsoft software bill has soared from 313 million kroner in 2018 to 538 million kroner -- about $53 million in 2023, a 72% increase in just five years. David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH), a Dane, inventor of Ruby on Rails, and co-owner of the software developer company 37Signals, has said: "Denmark is one of the most highly digitalized countries in the world. It's also one of the most Microsoft-dependent. In fact, Microsoft is by far and away the single biggest dependency, so it makes perfect sense to start the quest for digital sovereignty there."' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/25/06/12/0335229 Cheers, Peter

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Apple Quietly Launches Container On GitHub To Bring Linux Development To macOS
by Peter Reutemann 12 Jun '25

12 Jun '25

'A report from NERDS.xyz: Apple has released a new developer tool on GitHub called Container, offering a fresh approach to running Linux containers directly on macOS. Unlike Docker or Podman, this tool is designed to feel at home in the Apple ecosystem and hooks into frameworks already built into the operating system. Container runs standard OCI images, but it doesn't use a single shared Linux VM. Instead, it creates a small Linux virtual machine for every container you spin up. That sounds heavy at first, but the VMs are lightweight and boot quickly. Each one is isolated, which Apple claims improves both security and privacy. Developers can run containerized workloads locally with native macOS support and without needing to install third-party container platforms.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/25/06/11/2116233 Cheers, Peter

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FreeBSD 14.3 Released
by Peter Reutemann 12 Jun '25

12 Jun '25

'Michael Larabel of Phoronix highlights the key updates in today's stable release of FreeBSD 14.3: FreeBSD 14.3 has back-ported a number of improvements from FreeBSD 15 back to the FreeBSD 14 series. Plus a number of routine package updates and other fixes. Some of the FreeBSD 14.3-RELEASE highlights include: - Updating the ZFS support against OpenZFS 2.2.7. - Merging of the Realtek RTW88 and RTW89 WiFi drivers based on the Linux 6.14 kernel code. - The LinuxKPI code has been improved to support crypto offload as well as the 802.11n and 802.11ac standards. - The Intel IX Ethernet driver has added support for the x550 1000BAS-BX SFP modules. - Thor2 PCI IDs added to the Broadcom NetXtreme "BNXT" driver along with support for 400G speed modules. - XZ 5.8.1, OpenSSH 9.9p2, OpenSSL 3.0.16, and many other package updates. - Syscons as the legacy system console driver is now considered deprecated. Syscons is not compatible with UEFI, lacks UTF-8 support, and is Giant-locked. ' -- source: https://bsd.slashdot.org/story/25/06/10/2146224 Cheers, Peter

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Ubuntu Linux 25.10 Quietly Kills Off GNOME On Xorg As Wayland Takes Over
by Peter Reutemann 12 Jun '25

12 Jun '25

'Ubuntu 25.10, known as Questing Quokka, is taking a big turn under the hood. Canonical has dropped support for the GNOME desktop running on Xorg. Starting with this release, the default Ubuntu session now uses Wayland only. Yes, folks, there's no longer an option to log into GNOME on Xorg.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/06/10/181234 Cheers, Peter

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New Linux Flaws Allow Password Hash Theft via Core Dumps in Ubuntu, RHEL, Fedora
by Peter Reutemann 12 Jun '25

12 Jun '25

'Two information disclosure flaws have been identified in apport and systemd-coredump, the core dump handlers in Ubuntu, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and Fedora, according to the Qualys Threat Research Unit (TRU). Tracked as CVE-2025-5054 and CVE-2025-4598, both vulnerabilities are race condition bugs that could enable a local attacker to obtain access to access sensitive information. Tools like Apport and systemd-coredump are designed to handle crash reporting and core dumps in Linux systems. "These race conditions allow a local attacker to exploit a SUID program and gain read access to the resulting core dump," Saeed Abbasi, manager of product at Qualys TRU, said.' -- source: https://thehackernews.com/2025/05/new-linux-flaws-allow-password-hash.html Cheers, Peter

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