- wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

New Pine64 phones with upgraded hardware begin shipping in August
by Peter Reutemann 17 Jul '20

17 Jul '20

'Yesterday, Pine64 announced the end of the PinePhone UBPorts Community Edition campaign—but more importantly, the company declared the beginning of the postmarketOS Community Edition campaign. The base version of the new run of PinePhones shares the same $149 price point and the same basic technical specs as the original developer edition—but there's also a new, upgraded "Convergence Package" available at $199. Before anyone gets too excited, we need to make something clear—these devices, while attractively priced, should be considered beta gadgets for tinkerers to experiment and play with. They are not yet fully functional phones, and in their current development status, they are unlikely to be anyone's full-time daily-usage smartphone. The apps don't all work yet—including making calls—and battery life still leaves a lot to be desired.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/07/pine64-launches-postmarketos-editio… 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/

1 0

Chrome 84 Arrives With SameSite Cookie Changes, Web OTP API and Web Animations
by Peter Reutemann 17 Jul '20

17 Jul '20

'Google today launched Chrome 84 for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and iOS. Chrome 84 resumes SameSite cookie changes, includes the Web OTP API and Web Animations API, and removes older Transport Layer Security (TLS) versions. [...] First deprecated with Chrome 81 in April, TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.1 have now been completely removed with Chrome 84. This is notable for anyone who manages a website, even if they donâ(TM)t use Chrome at home or at work. TLS is a cryptographic protocol designed to provide communications security over a computer network -- websites use it to secure all communications between their servers and browsers. TLS also succeeds Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and thus handles the encryption of every HTTPS connection.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/20/07/16/1444257 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/

1 0

NSA On Securing VPNs
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 16 Jul '20

16 Jul '20

Bruce Schneier reports <https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2020/07/nsa_on_securing.html> on an advisory from the US National Security Agency on how to secure your VPN setup. The document is available in a 10-page or 2-page version. The tips can be summarized as * Reduce the VPN gateway attack surface * Verify on CNSSP-15-compliant algorithms are in use * Avoid using default settings * Remove unused or non-compliant cryptography suites * Apply vendor-provided updates The one about not using default settings I found interesting, the explanation given being that “many vendors provide default configurations, automated configuration scripts, or graphical user interface wizards to aid in the deployment of VPNs”, but that these tools/defaults may prioritize ease of setup over security, and therefore enable extra options that should not be enabled. The longer version gives detailed configuration examples.

1 0

Microsoft urges patching severe-impact, wormable server vulnerability
by Peter Reutemann 16 Jul '20

16 Jul '20

'Microsoft is urgently advising Windows server customers to patch a vulnerability that allows attackers to take control of entire networks with no user interaction and, from there, rapidly spread from computer to computer. The vulnerability, dubbed SigRed by the researchers who discovered it, resides in Windows DNS, a component that automatically responds to requests to translate a domain into the IP address computers need to locate it on the Internet. By sending maliciously formed queries, attackers can execute code that gains domain administrator rights and, from there, take control of an entire network. The vulnerability, which doesn’t apply to client versions of Windows, is present in server versions from 2003 to 2019. SigRed is formally tracked as CVE-2020-1350. Microsoft issued a fix as part of this month's Update Tuesday.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/07/microsoft-urges-patc… 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/

1 0

SoftBank To Sell ARM?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 15 Jul '20

15 Jul '20

Just four years after acquiring it, SoftBank now wants to sell off Arm Holdings, the company that creates (and licenses) designs for ARM chips <https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/14/softbank_considering_arm_sale_report/>. Besides SoftBank’s well-known string of recent investment missteps, there was this interesting quote: Speaking to The Register, one company insider said SoftBank was dissatisfied with Arm's business model and wanted it to charge more for royalties. But if it does that, it just makes alternatives like RISC-V look more competitive.

1 0

Rust Code In The Linux Kernel?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 14 Jul '20

14 Jul '20

Looks like several kernel developers, up to and including Linus Torvalds himself, are receptive <https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/13/rust_code_in_linux_kernel/> towards including code written in Mozilla’s Rust language in the Linux kernel. Albeit Torvalds sees it being used, initially at least, in parts “not very central to the kernel itself”, like drivers. A principal feature of Rust is the strict way it manages memory pointers, to limit the scope for common mistakes like memory leaks and double-frees. But unlike other languages like Java, Go or Kotlin, it does not bake the overhead of garbage collection into the language itself. This makes it more suitable for high-performance and lower-level tasks than those languages. More info here: <https://www.rust-lang.org/>.

1 0

Microsoft’s Dotnet Core Runs Better On Linux Than Windows
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 14 Jul '20

14 Jul '20

Microsoft now has a (pre-release) extension for Visual Studio <https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/13/microsoft_visual_studio_gets_net/> so that you can not only deploy your Dotnet Core application on Linux, you can now debug it on a genuine Linux environment as well, using WSL 2. Mentioned in passing in that report are a couple of stories of developers finding their apps run better on cloud Linux instances than on Windows ones. So it seems the only thing left running on Windows proper is Visual Studio itself.

1 0

Microsoft Dropping PHP For Windows
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 13 Jul '20

13 Jul '20

I didn’t know that Microsoft had been offering “official” PHP builds for Windows versions up to 7.x, but that is now due to end <https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/10/microsoft_php/>: they will not supply builds for PHP 8.0 or later. Also interesting to note in the article that Windows IIS’ share of the web server market has fallen precipitously lately, and has become a poor third (or even fourth) behind Apache and Nginx. And Google!?

2 1

Linus Torvalds Hopes Intel's AVX-512 'Dies A Painful Death'
by Peter Reutemann 13 Jul '20

13 Jul '20

'"Linux creator Linus Torvalds had some choice words today on Advanced Vector Extensions 512 (AVX-512) found on select Intel processors," reports Phoronix: In a mailing list discussion stemming from the Phoronix article this week on the compiler instructions Intel is enabling for Alder Lake (and Sapphire Rapids), Linus Torvalds chimed in. The Alder Lake instructions being flipped on in GCC right now make no mention of AVX-512 but only AVX2 and others, likely due to Intel pursuing the subset supported by both the small and large cores in this new hybrid design being pursued. The lack of seeing AVX512 for Alder Lake led Torvalds to comment: I hope AVX512 dies a painful death, and that Intel starts fixing real problems instead of trying to create magic instructions to then create benchmarks that they can look good on. I hope Intel gets back to basics: gets their process working again, and concentrate more on regular code that isn't HPC or some other pointless special case. I've said this before, and I'll say it again: in the heyday of x86, when Intel was laughing all the way to the bank and killing all their competition, absolutely everybody else did better than Intel on FP loads. Intel's FP performance sucked (relatively speaking), and it matter not one iota. Because absolutely nobody cares outside of benchmarks. The same is largely true of AVX512 now - and in the future... After several more paragraphs, Torvalds reaches his conclusion. "Stop with the special-case garbage, and make all the core common stuff that everybody cares about run as well as you humanly can." Phoronix notes that Torvalds' comments came "just weeks after he switched to AMD Ryzen Threadripper for his primary development rig."' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/20/07/12/1729255 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/

1 0

Whither Dotnet Core?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 10 Jul '20

10 Jul '20

From <https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/09/net_core_still_a_microsoft/>, people are wondering why there isn’t a greater uptake of Microsoft’s cross-platform, open-source versions of Dotnet and C#: "What's up with non-.NET developers thinking C# is a Windows only, corporate bloatware language? It's not 2005 any more." Yeah, but it’s not clear why we would want *cross-platform* bloatware ...

1 0

“I Am Not A Number!”
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 10 Jul '20

10 Jul '20

>From <https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/09/bork/>: Your updated gas balance is: £NaN “We want ... calculation.” “You won’t get it!” “By hook or by crook, we will.”

1 0

Chrome and Firefox Are Getting Support For the New AVIF Image Format
by Peter Reutemann 10 Jul '20

10 Jul '20

'The new lightweight and royalty-free AVIF image format is coming to web browsers. Work is almost complete on adding AVIF support to Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. From a report: The new image format is considered one of the lightest and most optimized image compression formats, and has already gained praise from companies such as Netflix, which considers it superior to existing image formats such as JPEG, PNG, and even the newer WebP. The acronym of AVIF stands for AV1 Image File Format. As its name hints, AVIF is based on AV1, which is a video codec that was developed in 2015, following a collaboration between Google, Cisco, and Xiph.org (who also worked with Mozilla). At the time, the three decided to pool their respective in-house video codecs (VPX, Thor, and Daala) to create a new one (AV1) that they planned to offer as an open-source and royalty-free alternative to all the commercial video codecs that had fragmented and clogged the video streaming market in the late 2000s and early 2010s.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/07/09/202235 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/

1 0

Google Creates “Open Usage Commons”
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 09 Jul '20

09 Jul '20

From <https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/08/google_trademarks_open_usage_commons/>, Google is creating an organization specifically to deal with trademark issues, entirely separate from code. FSF Europe’s Alexander Sander says: “Trademarks issues are becoming more and more relevant for Free Software. This development is mainly due to the fact that Free Software is increasingly and successfully used in the commercial sector.” True, that. Consider the stoush between Debian and Mozilla over the “Firefox” trademark and branding, and the consequent creation of the “Iceweasel” fork. (Looks like that was eventually resolved amicably.) However, note this counterpoint from the Linux Foundation: "Under US trademark law you are not able to effectively separate ownership of a project mark from control of the underlying open source project."

1 0

Over 100 Wi-Fi Routers Fail Major Security Test -- Protect Yourself Now
by Peter Reutemann 09 Jul '20

09 Jul '20

'Tom's Guide: Using its own analytical software, the [Fraunhofer Institute] tested the most recently available firmware for 117 home Wi-Fi models currently sold in Europe, including routers from ASUS, D-Link, Linksys, Netgear, TP-Link, Zyxel and the small German brand AVM. The models themselves were not physically tested. A full list of the tested models and firmware is on GitHub. The institute was not able to examine the firmware of 10 more models, mostly from Linksys. The report notes (PDF) that many firmware updates are issued without fixing known flaws. So what can you do? You can make sure that the next router you buy automatically installs firmware updates. You can check to see whether your current router does so, or makes it fairly easy to install firmware updates manually. You should also make sure that the administrative password for your router has been changed from the factory default password. (Check the list of default passwords at https://www.routerpasswords.com.) You should also check its administrative interface to make sure that UPnP and remote access are disabled. And if your router was first released more than 5 years ago, consider buying a newer model unless it meets all of the above criteria. Alternatively, you could try to "flash" your older router to run more secure open-source router firmware such as OpenWrt, DD-WRT or Tomato. "The worst case regarding high severity CVEs [widely known flaws] is the Linksys WRT54GL powered by the oldest kernel found in our study," the report said, noting that this model uses the 2.4.20 kernel from 2002. "There are 579 high severity CVEs affecting this product." "That particular model last had its firmware updated in January 2016, one of the oldest firmwares in the study," adds Tom's Guide. "The Linksys WRT54GL was first released in 2005 and is still sold today, even though it handles Wi-Fi protocols only up to 802.11g. However, the WRT54G series is possibly the best-selling family of Wi-Fi routers ever..."' -- source: https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/20/07/08/2058240 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/

3 2

Google and Canonical Bring Flutter Apps To Linux and the Snap Store
by Peter Reutemann 09 Jul '20

09 Jul '20

'Google is partnering with the Ubuntu Desktop team at Canonical to bring Linux support to its open source UI framework Flutter. Today's Linux alpha announcement also means Flutter developers can now deploy their apps to the Snap Store. Flutter group product manager Tim Sneath argues this is a big milestone because UI frameworks rarely become versatile and powerful enough for an operating system to depend on. He pointed to Windows being written in C++ rather than .NET, even for applets like the Calculator. Sneath also believes this shows Canonical is willing to invest in a first-class way to build apps for Linux, making Flutter on Linux an official part of Ubuntu. Additionally, enterprises can feel confident about picking Flutter -- it's more evidence of its longevity and technical excellence, Sneath said.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/20/07/08/1722203 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/

2 1

Linux Company SUSE Outbids Competitors for Fast-growing Startup Rancher Labs
by Peter Reutemann 09 Jul '20

09 Jul '20

'SUSE, a Linux distribution company controlled by private equity firm EQT, has agreed to acquire Rancher Labs, a start-up with technology that helps organizations run software in virtual containers across many servers. From a report: The companies announced the deal Wednesday but didn't disclose the terms. Two people familiar with the deal said SUSE is paying $600 million to $700 million. The transaction suggests that even during a recession, demand remains high for technology that can enable companies to operate more efficiently. Talks between the companies began in the spring, and the process became competitive with additional bids, Ursheet Parikh, a partner at Rancher backer Mayfield Fund, told CNBC on Tuesday. There were "lots of Zoom calls," Parikh said. In the past few years, with the rise of start-ups such as Docker, containers became a trendy alternative to more traditional virtualization technology for running applications on each computer server in a company data center. Amazon, Microsoft and other cloud providers came out with services that developers can use to place code in containers, and in 2017 SUSE introduced its own service for managing containers. The companies haven't finalized integration plans as the deal still faces regulatory approval.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/20/07/08/147202 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/

1 0

Mozilla Suspends Firefox Send Service While It Addresses Malware Abuse
by Peter Reutemann 09 Jul '20

09 Jul '20

'Mozilla has temporarily suspended the Firefox Send file-sharing service as the organization investigates reports of abuse from malware operators and while it adds a "Report abuse" button. The browser maker took down the service today after ZDNet reached out to inquire about Firefox Send's increasing prevalence in current malware operations. Since last year, several malware operations have hosted payloads on the service. This includes ransomware gangs like REvil/Sodinokibi, financial crime crews like FIN7, the Zloader and Ursnif banking trojans operations, and government surveillance groups targeting human rights defenders. Reasons include the fact that Firefox Send doesn't have an Report Abuse mechanism, all file uploads are encrypted (useful to dodge malware scanners), and the Firefox URL is whitelisted in most orgs (useful for bypassing email filters).' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/07/08/1811228 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/

1 0

LibreOffice Getting More Commercial?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 08 Jul '20

08 Jul '20

Seems that a major policy announcement is coming up from The Document Foundation (the outfit behind LibreOffice) on July 15th. In the meantime, some hints have (unintentionally) leaked out <https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/07/libreoffice_community_protests_at_in…>, such as the about-box in LO 7.0 saying “The personal edition is supported by volunteers and intended for individual use”.

1 0

New H.266 VCC Codec Up To 50% More Efficient Than Previous Standard
by Peter Reutemann 07 Jul '20

07 Jul '20

'The Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute on Tuesday announced the H.266 Versatile Video Coding codec, which will power more data-efficient video capture and transmission on future iPhones. AppleInsider reports: Apple adopted the predecessor to the new codec, H.265/HEVC, in iOS 11. The updated video codec, which was developed after years of research and standardization, will bring a number of tangible benefits to future iPhone users. In its announcement, the Fraunhofer HHI said that H.266 will reduce data requirements by around 50% thanks to improved compression. With the previous HEVC codec, it took about 10GB of data to transmit a 90-minute ultra-high definition (UHD) video. H.266 can do that with 5GB. The codec, as detailed in a 500-page specification, was designed from the ground up for use with 4K and 8K streaming. It'll allow users to store more high-definition video and reduce the amount of data on cellular networks.' -- source: https://apple.slashdot.org/story/20/07/06/219225 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/

1 0

Linus Torvalds Likes His New AMD Threadripper System
by Peter Reutemann 06 Jul '20

06 Jul '20

'This week Linus Torvalds and Dirk Hohndel re-created their keynote conversation for a special all-virtual edition of the Open Source Summit and Embedded Linux Conference North America. ZDNet reports: While COVID-19 has slowed down many technologies, while speeding up other tech developments, it hasn't affected Linux development much at all. "None of my co-developers have been hugely impacted either. I was worried for a while because one of our developers was offline for a month or two.... [But,] it turned out that it was just RSI [repetitive strain injury], and RSI is kind of an occupational hazard to deal with." He added. "One of the things that is so interesting about the Linux community is how much it has always been email-based and remote, how rarely we get together in person...." Torvalds trusts this new build. Indeed, he ran his end of the videoconference from his new developer machine running the first release candidate of 5.8. Thinking of his new AMD Threadripper 3970x-based processor-powered developer desktop, Torvalds later added that, although he had been concerned about its fan noise it actually works well for him. Torvalds moved to this new homebrew computer because he needed the speed. "My 'allmodconfig' test builds are now three times faster than they used to be." That's important because Torvalds "strives to do about 20 to 30 [pull requests] a day, which is above my limit, ... [but] in order to do that, [he needs] a lot of computing power. ' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/20/07/03/2349231 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/

3 5

Mexico Bans Home PC Repair, Non-OEM OS Installs
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 04 Jul '20

04 Jul '20

The Mexican “Cámara de Diputados” (“Chamber of Deputies” or lower house of the Mexican Congress) has just passed a law, according to DistroTube <https://www.youtube.com/post/UgyENs4zc_xx-uyL3-N4AaABCQ> (referencing this <https://twitter.com/YourAnonCentral/status/1278172057486766080> Twitter thread), seemingly making any kind of modifications to your own electronic devices illegal. This includes things like changing the hard drive or installing a non-OEM OS (e.g. a Linux distro).

1 0

Ads Are Taking Over Samsung's Galaxy Smartphones
by Peter Reutemann 02 Jul '20

02 Jul '20

'Max Weinbach, writing for Android Police: I have been using Samsung phones every day for almost 4 years. It was because Samsung had fantastic hardware paired with --depending on the year -- good software. 2020 is the first year in a while I'm not using a Samsung phone as my daily driver. The reason? Ads. Ads in Samsung phones never really bothered me, at least not until the past few months. It started with the Galaxy Z Flip. A tweet from Todd Haselton of CNBC is what really caught my eye. Samsung had put an ad from DirectTV in the stock dialer app. This is really something I never would have expected from any smartphone company, let alone Samsung. It showed up in the "Places" tab in the dialer app, which is in partnership with Yelp and lets you search for different businesses directly from the dialer app so you don't need to Google somewhere to find the address or phone number. I looked into it, to see if this was maybe a mistake on Yelp's part, accidentally displaying an ad where it shouldn't have, but nope. The ad was placed by Samsung, in an area where it could blend in so they could make money. Similar ads exist throughout a bunch of Samsung apps. Samsung Music has ads that look like another track in your library. Samsung Health and Samsung Pay have banners for promotional ads. The stock weather app has ads that look like they could be news. There is also more often very blatant advertising in most of these apps as well. Samsung Music will give you a popup ad for Sirius XM, even though Spotify is built into the Samsung Music app. You can hide the SiriusXM popup, but only for 7 days at a time. A week later, it will be right back there waiting for you. Samsung will also give you push notification ads for new products from Bixby, Samsung Pay, and Samsung Push Service. ' -- source: https://slashdot.org/story/20/07/01/196224 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/

1 0

Google Removes 25 Android Apps Caught Stealing Facebook Credentials
by Peter Reutemann 01 Jul '20

01 Jul '20

'Google has removed this month 25 Android apps from the Google Play Store that were caught stealing Facebook credentials. From a report: Before being taken down, the 25 apps were collectively downloaded more than 2.34 million times. The malicious apps were developed by the same threat group and despite offering different features, under the hood, all the apps worked the same. According to a report from French cyber-security firm Evina shared with ZDNet today, the apps posed as step counters, image editors, video editors, wallpaper apps, flashlight applications, file managers, and mobile games. The apps offered a legitimate functionality, but they also contained malicious code. Evina researchers say the apps contained code that detected what app a user recently opened and had in the phone's foreground. If the app was Facebook, the malicious app would overlay a web browser window on top of the official Facebook app and load a fake Facebook login page (see image below: blue bar = actual Facebook app, black bar = phishing page).' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/06/30/1411202 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/

1 0

Android's AirDrop Competitor Is Coming Soon
by Peter Reutemann 01 Jul '20

01 Jul '20

'Android's long-awaited "Nearby Sharing" feature, which allows you to share files between Android devices wirelessly, is rolling out to beta testers. Android Police reports: Nearby Sharing may appear slightly differently depending on the type of content you try to share. In all cases, it shows up as an app in the apps list on the share sheet, but you may also get a smaller prompt just under the content preview, more like it did in the previous Android 11 video leak. We tested it on a Pixel 4 XL and Pixel 3a running Android 10, but the appearance may also vary on other versions of Android. Note that Nearby Share works for both files like photos or videos, as well as other shareable content like Tweets and URLs. It probably works with a lot of things. Select Nearby Share in the share sheet as the target, and you're prompted to turn on the feature, if it's the first time you've used it. The quick setup process lets you configure your default device name and device visibility settings, though those can also be changed later. Once you have it enabled, Nearby Sharing starts looking for other nearby devices. The interface is pretty simple: A big X in the top left corner backs you out, your avatar on the right takes you to a settings pane that lets you configure things like your device name, visibility, and which mechanism to use to make the transfer (i.e., whether to use your internet connection for small files, to stick to Wi-Fi, or to always share offline). Google says Nearby Share is currently in limited testing via the Play Services beta: "We're currently conducting a beta test of a new Nearby Share feature that we plan to share more information on in the future. Our goal is to launch the feature with support for Android 6+ devices as well as other platforms."' -- source: https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/20/06/30/2014259 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/

1 0

Apple Declined To Implement 16 Web APIs in Safari Due To Privacy Concerns
by Peter Reutemann 30 Jun '20

30 Jun '20

'Apple said last week that it declined to implement 16 new web technologies (Web APIs) in Safari because they posed a threat to user privacy by opening new avenues for user fingerprinting. Technologies that Apple declined to include in Safari because of user fingerprinting concerns include: Web Bluetooth - Allows websites to connect to nearby Bluetooth LE devices. Web MIDI API - Allows websites to enumerate, manipulate and access MIDI devices. Magnetometer API - Allows websites to access data about the local magnetic field around a user, as detected by the device's primary magnetometer sensor. Web NFC API - Allows websites to communicate with NFC tags through a device's NFC reader. Device Memory API - Allows websites to receive the approximate amount of device memory in gigabytes. Network Information API - Provides information about the connection a device is using to communicate with the network and provides a means for scripts to be notified if the connection type changes. Battery Status API - Allows websites to receive information about the battery status of the hosting device. Web Bluetooth Scanning - Allows websites to scan for nearby Bluetooth LE devices. Ambient Light Sensor - Lets websites get the current light level or illuminance of the ambient light around the hosting device via the device's native sensors. [...] The vast majority of these APIs are only implemented in Chromium-based browsers, and very few on Mozilla's platform. Apple claims that the 16 Web APIs above would allow online advertisers and data analytics firms to create scripts that fingerprint users and their devices. ' -- source: https://apple.slashdot.org/story/20/06/29/1456247 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/

2 1