- wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

presentations/demos for next meeting
by Peter Reutemann 01 Jul '15

01 Jul '15

Hi everyone At the moment, we're still looking for a theme (read presenters) for this month's WLUG meeting on July 27. Any takers? As a fallback option, I was thinking of giving the new Linux Mint 17.2 a spin (MATE and Cinnamon) and Ian has plenty of Debian 8 installations on his machine to show off briefly. Thanks. 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

How to upgrade Debian Wheezy to Jessie safely
by Peter Reutemann 01 Jul '15

01 Jul '15

"This tutorial explains how to upgrade your Debian system from Wheezy to Jessie in a few simple steps. Before you start with the upgrade, backup all critical data. Thats especially the config data in the /etc directory and the user data in /home. When you run a server then you should include the databases (MySQL, Postgresql, etc), web and email data in the backup as well." -- source: http://www.linuxtoday.com/infrastructure/how-to-upgrade-debian-wheezy-to-je… 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

SSH To Multiple Machines Simultaneously with DSH
by Peter Reutemann 01 Jul '15

01 Jul '15

"Once you grow beyond managing one or two servers, you???ll find yourself wasting a ton of time if you don't have a way to run commands on multiple Linux computers simultaneously. In this post, I'll explain how to quickly run commands on large numbers of Linux machines at once." -- source: http://www.linuxtoday.com/upload/ssh-to-multiple-machines-simultaneously-wi… 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

Win XP lives OK!??
by Ian Young 26 Jun '15

26 Jun '15

Sorry this is utterly off-topic but couldn't resist. Stranger than fiction. http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2414849/windows-xp-us-navy-throws-…

1 0

MAC Address Privacy Standard Coming
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 26 Jun '15

26 Jun '15

Every network interface (wired or wireless) on every networked device in the world is assigned a unique 48-bit identifier—the MAC address—burned into its ROM at manufacturing time. While it’s often (usually?) possible to change this via the software driver, nobody thought of it as a big deal. Until recently, when certain, ahem, spying revelations have woken people to the privacy implications of being able to track a machine, particularly on wi-fi networks, based on its unique MAC address. And so some folks at the Internet Engineering Task Force have been doing experiments to determine whether randomly changing these addresses would cause hiccups for any network protocols. The good news is that the answer so far seems to be “no”. <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/26/mac_address_privacy_inches_towards_…>

3 2

How Long Should Microsoft Be Forced To Provide Windows XP Support?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 26 Jun '15

26 Jun '15

Reading about how the US Navy <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/25/us_navy_windows_xp_support/> has signed a contract to get continuing support from Microsoft for Windows XP, led me to wonder how long is a “reasonable” interval for Microsoft to continue to provide patches and updates for this ancient OS. My reasoning is thus: Windows XP is still under copyright. Microsoft still considers it to be its “intellectual property”. The term “property” is deliberately used, to convey the idea of something owned by Microsoft, not by you, the customer. All you get when you buy it is a “licence”, not ownership. But with property rights come property responsibilities. If your property is causing harm or nuisance to others, the onus is on you to fix it. Therefore, Microsoft’s responsibilities over its “intellctual property” should continue just as long as it claims those property rights. If unmaintained Windows XP machines are being exploited as parts of botnets or spam relays or virus vectors or whatever, the onus for fixing those problems should be on the property owner, right? Under current US copyright law, that duration would be 90 years from when Windows XP was first published, or, by my reckoning, the year 2091.

1 0

F2FS Brings Per-File Encryption With Linux 4.2
by Peter Reutemann 25 Jun '15

25 Jun '15

"Based on the native encryption support added to EXT4 with the Linux 4.1 kernel, Linux 4.2 is bringing encryption support to the F2FS file-system. F2FS has been working on native encryption support in tandem with the EXT4 work and now it's been called for merging today into Linux 4.2. Jaegeuk Kim sent in the F2FS feature update for Linux 4.2 and it features per-file encryption support along with new capabilities for FALLOC_FL_ZERO_RANGE (converting a range of file to zeroes), FALLOC_FL_COLLAPSE_RANGE (removes a byte range from a file), and RENAME_WHITEOUT. The Flash-Friendly File-System for Linux 4.2 also has recovery for broken super-blocks, TRIM improvements, and various fixes. " -- source: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=F2FS-Encryption-Linux-4.2 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

Got Chrome? Google Just Silently Downloaded This Onto Your Computer
by Peter Reutemann 24 Jun '15

24 Jun '15

'On June 17th, Google did not announce (the news broke) that the DARPA affiliated corporation has been silently downloading audio listeners onto every computer that has Chrome. This effectively means that Google sees your privacy as piddly-squat, which does not necessarily come off as a surprise, when one considers Google’s censorship of We Are Change – this very organization as nothing. The website Private Internet Access‘s Rick Falkvinge reported how he came to understand this new policy: “It looked like just another bug report. “When I start Chromium, it downloads something.” Followed by strange status information that notably included the lines “Microphone: Yes” and “Audio Capture Allowed: Yes”. Without consent, Google’s code had downloaded a black box of code that – according to itself – had turned on the microphone and was actively listening to your room.”' -- source: http://wearechange.org/got-chrome-google-just-silently-downloaded-this-onto… Confirmed that on my box as well, when using the following URL: chrome://voicesearch/ Nice... 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 2

"Invite-Only" Ubuntu Mobile-Powered Meizu UX4 Goes On Sale
by Peter Reutemann 24 Jun '15

24 Jun '15

"Chinese manufacturer Meizu and Ubuntu developer Canonical have released the MX4 smartphone, but prospective owners will have to 'earn' an opportunity to buy the phone by playing an interactive origami game. Players are limited to three chances per day and this is the only way to buy the smartphone as it will no go on wider sale at a later date. The MX4 is the third Ubuntu Mobile smartphone to be released, following the BQ Aquaris E4.5 and E5 devices." -- source: http://news.slashdot.org/story/15/06/24/1642213 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

Linux 4.1 Kernel Released With EXT4 Encryption, Performance Improvements
by Peter Reutemann 22 Jun '15

22 Jun '15

"The Linux 4.1 kernel has been announced and its release brings expanded features for the Linux kernel including EXT4 file-system encryption, open-source GeForce GTX 750 support, performance improvements for Intel Atom / Bay Trail hardware, RAID 5/6 improvements, and other additions." -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/15/06/22/1431243 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