- wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

Is It Finally the Year of 'Linux on the Desktop' ?
by Peter Reutemann 13 May '19

13 May '19

'"2019 is truly, finally shaping up to be the year of Linux on the desktop," writes PC World's senior editor, adding "Laptops, too!" But most people won't know it. That's because the bones of the open-source operating system kernel will soon be baked into Windows 10 and Chrome OS, as Microsoft and Google revealed at their respective developer conferences this week... Between lurking in Windows 10 and Chrome OS, and the tiny portion of actual Linux distro installs, pretty much any PC you pick up will run a Linux kernel and Linux software. Macs won't, but it's based on a Unix-like BSD system that already runs many Linux apps with relative ease (hence Apple's popularity with developers). You have to wonder where that leaves proper Linux distributions like Ubuntu and Linux Mint, though. They already suffer from a minuscule user share, and developers may shift toward Windows and Chrome if the Linux kernels in those operating systems get the same job done. Could this fruit wind up poisonous over the long term? We'll have to see. That said, Linux is healthier than ever. The major distros are far more polished than they used to be, with far fewer hardware woes than installs of yesteryear. You can even get your game on relatively well thanks to Valve's Proton technology, which gets many (but not all) Steam games working on Linux systems. And hey, Linux is free. Normal users may never be aware of it, but 2019 may finally be the year of Linux on the desktop -- just not Linux operating systems on the desktop. ' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/19/05/13/0336224 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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meeting *next* Monday (May 20th)
by Peter Reutemann 13 May '19

13 May '19

Hi everyone Due to lining up with Techweek 2019, we shifted our monthly WLUG meeting to next week (May 20th). 'Lawrence D'Oliveiro will give an intro to Nagios (https://www.nagios.org/) an extensible system for monitoring all kinds of behaviour on a Linux box. He will also discuss writing your own plugins, to add monitoring of system characteristics that Nagios does not already provide as standard. The examples will be in Python, though they can be done in any language. This Meetup is part of the Techweek19 Waikato festival of innovation.' More details: https://www.meetup.com/WaikatoLinuxUsersGroup/events/257884277/ Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Ubuntu 19.04: The Disco Dingo arrives and will really make your IT dept. happy
by Peter Reutemann 12 May '19

12 May '19

'Canonical recently released Ubuntu 19.04, the latest version of its flagship GNOME-based Linux desktop. But if you're a desktop user, you might be feeling a little left out. The big points of emphasis in this latest release are on Ubuntu as a tool for infrastructure development, server deployment, and the good old Internet of Things. For the server version of Ubuntu, the OS ships with all the latest cloud computing tools. In fact, that's already available in optimized builds on the major cloud services. Elsewhere, the latest version of the venerable Ubuntu desktop packs quite a few additional, tempting reasons to upgrade for Linux gamers. Ubuntu 19.04 makes the leap to the Linux kernel 5.x series, for instance, which offers much improved graphics support. Despite all the talk of developer tools and enterprise deployment stacks—Canonical has even taken to calling Ubuntu the "leading OS for cloud operations" lately—Ubuntu 19.04 is ultimately a worthwhile upgrade for all. After spending some time with it recently, we found some nice updates to the desktop, too. So no matter your Ubuntu use case, 19.04 seems to offer users a faster, more polished desktop than its predecessors.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/05/ubuntu-19-04-review-the-disco-dingo… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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ImageMagick "not authorized" PDF errors
by Peter Reutemann 12 May '19

12 May '19

Hi there I was trying to convert some images into PDFs using ImageMagick's "convert" tool and encountered a "not authorized" error, something similar to the following: convert-im6.q16: not authorized `scan.pdf' @ error/constitute.c/WriteImage/1037. Took me a while figuring that one out. As it turns out, this is due to ImageMagick's security policy being tightened up (no default rights for PDF/PS): /etc/ImageMagick-6/policy.xml You can, of course, re-enable support for PDF/PS. See the following post: https://cromwell-intl.com/open-source/pdf-not-authorized.html Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Firefox 66.0.3 disabled all your plugins?
by Peter Reutemann 11 May '19

11 May '19

Hi there I just updated my Firefox to 66.0.3 and all of a sudden, all my installed plugins were disabled (eg uBlock). Turns out that the release was buggy and they are working on a fix. In the meantime, you can get things going again through a trick: by enabling "participating in studies" you can get access to their hotfix to remedy this problem (though it can take some time before you get notified once you enabled this option - up to 6 hours; it only took a minute for me). For more information, see the official blog post: https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2019/05/04/update-regarding-add-ons-in-fire… If you haven't updated to 66.0.3, then I'd strongly advice to wait for the next version to become available. Will safe you some pain. Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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New Intel Firmware Boot Verification Bypass Enables Low-Level Backdoors
by Peter Reutemann 11 May '19

11 May '19

'At the Hack in the Box conference in Amsterdam this week, researchers Peter Bosch and Trammell Hudson presented a new attack against the Boot Guard feature of Intel's reference UEFI implementation, known as Tianocore. The attack, which can give an attacker full, persistent access, involves replacing a PC's SPI flash chip with one that contains rogue code, reports Lucian Constantin for CSO. "Even though such physical attacks require a targeted approach and will never be a widespread threat, they can pose a serious risk to businesses and users who have access to valuable information," writes Constantin. Intel has patches available for Tianocore, but as we all remember from the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities, distributing UEFI patches isn't an easy process.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/19/05/10/2335225 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Google Is Starting To Reveal the Secrets of Its Experimental Fuchsia OS
by Peter Reutemann 10 May '19

10 May '19

'At Google's I/O developer conference this past week, Android and Chrome chief Hiroshi Lockheimer offered some rare insight into Fuchsia, albeit at a very high level, in front of public audiences. The Verge reports: What we do know about Fuchsia is that it's an open source project, similar to AOSP, but could run all manner of devices, from smart home gadgets to laptops to phones. It's also known to be built on an all-new, Google-built kernel called "zircon," formerly known as "magenta," and not the Linux kernel that forms the foundation of Android and Chrome OS. "We're looking at what a new take on an operating system could be like. And so I know out there people are getting pretty excited saying, 'Oh this is the new Android,' or, 'This is the new Chrome OS,'" Lockheimer said. "Fuchsia is really not about that. Fuchsia is about just pushing the state of the art in terms of operating systems and things that we learn from Fuchsia we can incorporate into other products." He says the point of the experimental OS is to also experiment with different form factors, a hint toward the possibility that Fuchsia is designed to run on smart home devices, wearables, or possibly even augmented or virtual reality devices. "You know Android works really well on phones and and you know in the context of Chrome OS as a runtime for apps there. But Fuchsia may be optimized for certain other form factors as well. So we're experimenting." Lockheimer provided some additional details at a separate Android fireside chat held at Google I/O today. "It's not just phones and PCs. In the world of [the Internet of Things], there are increasing number of devices that require operating systems and new runtimes and so on. I think there's a lot of room for multiple operating systems with different strengths and specializations. Fuchsia is one of those things and so, stay tuned," he told the audience.' -- source: https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/19/05/10/0021243 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Don Norman: I wrote the book on user-friendly design. What I see today horrifies me
by Peter Reutemann 10 May '19

10 May '19

'The world is designed against the elderly, writes Don Norman, 83-year-old author of the industry bible Design of Everyday Things and a former Apple VP. ' -- source: https://www.fastcompany.com/90338379/i-wrote-the-book-on-user-friendly-desi… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Computerphile YouTube Channel
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 10 May '19

10 May '19

For those who are interested in short (10-minute or so) videos introducing various computing topics as discussed by lecturers at the University of Nottingham, have a look at the “Computerphile” channel <https://www.youtube.com/user/Computerphile> produced by Sean Riley. He also runs a sister channel which delves into mathematical topics, called “Numberphile” <https://www.youtube.com/user/numberphile>.

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Open source bug poses threat to sites running multiple CMSes
by Peter Reutemann 09 May '19

09 May '19

'Websites running the Drupal, Joomla, or Typo3 content-management systems are vulnerable to attacks that could possibly execute malicious code until administrators install just-released patches, developers and security researchers warned. The vulnerability resides in the PharStreamWrapper, a PHP component developed and open-sourced by CMS maker Typo3. Indexed as CVE-2019-11831, the flaw stems from a path-traversal bug that allows hackers to swap a site's legitimate phar archive with a malicious one. A phar archive is used to distribute a complete PHP application or library in a single file, in much the way a Java archive file bundles many Java files into a single file.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/05/open-source-bug-pose… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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All Chromebooks Will Also Be Linux Laptops Going Forward
by Peter Reutemann 09 May '19

09 May '19

'At Google I/O in Mountain View, Google said "all devices [Chromebook] launched this year will be Linux-ready right out of the box." From a report: In case you've missed it, last year, Google started making it possible to run desktop Linux on Chrome OS. Since then, more Chromebook devices are able to run Linux. Going forward, all of them will be able to do so, too. Yes. All of them. ARM and Intel-based.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/19/05/09/1724228 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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WordPress Finally Gets the Security Features a Third of the Internet Deserves
by Peter Reutemann 08 May '19

08 May '19

' The WordPress content management system (CMS) is set to receive an assortment of new security features today that will finally add the protection level that many of its users have desired for years. From a report: These features are expected to land with the official release of WordPress 5.2, expected for later today. Included are support for cryptographically-signed updates, support for a modern cryptography library, a Site Health section in the admin panel backend, and a feature that will act as a White-Screen-of-Death (WSOD) protection -- letting site admins access their backend in the case of catastrophic PHP errors. With WordPress being installed on around 33.8 percent of all internet sites, these features are set to put some fears at ease in regards to some attack vectors. Probably the biggest and the most important of today's new security features is WordPress' offline digital signatures system. Starting with WordPress 5.2, the WordPress team will digitally sign its update packages with the Ed25519 public-key signature system so that a local installation will be able to verify the update package's authenticity before applying it to a local site.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/19/05/07/1930208 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Android Q Gets Dark Mode, Live Video Captioning, Better Gestures and More
by Peter Reutemann 07 May '19

07 May '19

'At its annual I/O developer event, Google announced a bunch of new features available in the latest Android Q beta. Engadget reports: The most obvious new feature is dark mode, which will be released system-wide in Android Q. It's accessible via a toggle switch in the quick settings area and it'll also be activated when you turn on battery saver mode. We just saw a quick screenshot of it, but it looks like it'll apply to any apps you're using regardless of whether they're Google-made or from other developers. Another notable new feature is called Live Caption. If you're watching a video, Google's machine-learning algorithms can now add captions on the fly by just pressing the volume button and then a "live caption" button that'll show up on on the onscreen volume slider. From there, you can expand and contract the panel as you see fit, and move it up and down on the screen so it doesn't obscure your video. Google is also able to do all of this on-device, so it's more secure and also doesn't need a network connection. [T]he company says that there are 50 new privacy and security settings in Android Q. Perhaps most notable are new location services settings that let you limit location tracking to only when the app is running. It'll also give you notifications to let users see when apps are using your location in the background. New settings also let you keep apps from accessing media on your phone and collecting information about your device like its IMEI and serial number. [...] Google's adding a new "focus mode" to help shut down various distractions. It'll block most app alerts and notifications while allowing important contacts like your family members to reach you. There are also more tools for parents to manage their kids' phone time -- it'll let you review how they're using their phone from your own device, set daily time limits, review app requests and more. There are also tweaks to the gesture-based navigation bar to make it more closely resemble the navigation gestures first introduced in the iPhone X. Google's also adding a new chat-focused interface called "bubbles" that lets users keep messaging conversations accessible regardless of what they're doing with the phone. We can expect the final desert-themed name and release date later in the summer. The Q beta 3 is currently available on 21 devices, including all Pixel devices.' -- source: https://developers.slashdot.org/story/19/05/07/2050236 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Cray, AMD to build 1.5 exaflops supercomputer for US government
by Peter Reutemann 07 May '19

07 May '19

'AMD and Cray have announced that they're building "Frontier," a new supercomputer for the Department of Energy at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The goal is to deliver a system that can perform 1.5 exaflops: 1.5×1018 floating point operations per second. By way of comparison, a single Nvidia RTX 2080 GPU manages about 14 teraflops of compute performance with 32-bit numbers. Frontier will achieve 100,000 times more. The fastest supercomputer in the Top 500 list weighs in at 200 petaflops, or 0.2 exaflops. As things stand, it'd take the top 160 machines on the list to match Frontier's performance. Frontier will use custom versions of AMD's Epyc processors (likely Zen 3 or Zen 4), matched with 4 GPUs, all connected using AMD's Infinity Fabric. Between nodes, Cray's Slingshot interconnect will be used, which has transfer rates of up to 200Gb/s per port. The GPUs will have their own stacked HBM (High Bandwidth Memory). It'll be housed in 100 cabinets, taking about 7,300 square feet of floor space. Power consumption will be 30-40MW. The plan is for Frontier to be delivered in 2021, at a cost of about $500 million for the hardware and $100 million for research and development. It should be the fastest supercomputer in the world when it's delivered, and it will be the US government's second exaflops-capable system; the first will be the 1 exaflops Aurora, built using Intel Xeon SP processors and Intel Xe GPUs.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/05/cray-amd-to-build-1-5-exaflops-supe… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Linux 5.1 Released
by Peter Reutemann 07 May '19

07 May '19

'Linux 5.1 released has been released. The main feature in this release is io_uring, a high-performance interface for asynchronous I/O; there are also improvements in fanotify to provide a scalable way of watching changes on large file systems; it also adds a method to allow safe delivery of signals in presence of PID reuse; persistent memory can be used now as hot-plugabble RAM; Zstd compression levels have been made configurable in Btrfs; there is a new cpuidle governor that makes better power management decisions than the menu governor; all 32 bit architectures have added the necessary syscalls to deal with the y2038 problem; and live patching has added support for creating cumulative patches. There are many other features and new drivers in the changelog.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/19/05/06/1436248 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Windows 10 will soon ship with a full, open source, GPLed Linux kernel
by Peter Reutemann 06 May '19

06 May '19

'Earlier today, we wrote that Microsoft was going to add some big new features to the Windows Subsystem for Linux, including native support for Docker containers. It turns out that that ain't the half of it. The current Windows Subsystem for Linux uses a Microsoft-authored kernel component that provided the same kernel API as the Linux kernel but written from scratch by Microsoft. Essentially, it translated from Linux APIs to Windows NT kernel APIs. That worked pretty well, but the current subsystem had a few shortcomings: there was no ability to use Linux drivers, in particular file system drivers. Its file system performance, layered on top of Windows' own NTFS, was often 20 times slower than a real Linux kernel. It was also a relatively old version of the kernel; it offered approximately the set of APIs that Linux 4.4 did, and that was released in 2016. Some APIs aren't implemented at all, and others are only partially implemented to meet the needs of specific applications. All is changing with Windows Subsystem for Linux 2. Instead of emulating the Linux kernel APIs on the NT kernel, WSL 2 is going to run a full Linux kernel in a lightweight virtual machine. This kernel will be trimmed down and tailored to this particular use case, with stripped-down hardware support (since it will defer to the host Windows OS for that) and faster booting.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/05/windows-10-will-soon-ship-with-a-fu… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Second Firefox Fix Repairs Broken Browser Extensions For More People
by Peter Reutemann 05 May '19

05 May '19

'An anonymous reader quotes CNET: "Mozilla on Sunday began distributing new Firefox updates to fix a problem that broke extensions for many browser users on Friday," reports CNET: Mozilla had released an update Saturday, but Sunday's fix should help more people who were still affected. "There are some issues we're still working on, but we wanted to get this release out and get your add-ons back up & running before Monday," Mozilla said in a tweet Sunday... "No active steps need to be taken to make add-ons work again. In particular, please do not delete and/or reinstall any add-ons as an attempt to fix the issue," Kev Needham, Mozilla's product manager for add-ons, said in a blog post about the problem.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/19/05/05/2315224 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Does Open Source Have a 'Working For Free' Problem?
by Peter Reutemann 05 May '19

05 May '19

'"Let's abandon the notion that open source is exclusively charity," writes Havoc Pennington, a free software engineer (and former Red Hat engineer) who's now a co-founder of Tidelift: Look around. We do have a problem, and it's time we do something about it.... The lack of compensation isn't just bad for individual developers -- it also creates social problems, by amplifying existing privilege.... The narrative around open source is that it's completely OK -- even an expectation -- that we're all doing this for fun and exposure; and that giant companies should get huge publicity credit for throwing peanuts-to-them donations at a small subset of open source projects. There's nothing wrong with doing stuff for fun and exposure, or making donations, as an option. It becomes a problem when the free work is expected and the donations are seen as enough... What would open source be like if we had a professional class of independent maintainers, constantly improving the code we all rely on? The essay suggests some things consider, including asking people to pay for: * Support requests * Security audits/hardening and extremely good test coverage * Supporting old releases * License-metadata-annotation practices that are helpful for big companies trying to audit the code they use, but sort of a pain in the ass and nobody cares other than these big companies. "Right now many users expect, and demand, that all of this will be free. As an industry, perhaps we should push back harder on that expectation. It's OK to set some boundaries..." "Of course this relates to what we do at Tidelift -- the company came out of discussions about this problem, among others... In our day-to-day right now we're specifically striving to give subscribers a way to pay maintainers of their application dependencies for additional value, through the Tidelift Subscription. But we hope to see many more efforts and discussions in this area.... [I]n between a virtual tip jar and $100 million in funding, there's a vast solution space to explore."' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/19/04/28/0459236 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Hard Drive Reliability At Backblaze
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 05 May '19

05 May '19

This article <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/05/03/backblaze_drive_reliability_stats/> on the latest disk reliability report from backup business Backblaze led me to following up some interesting links. In this older item <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/02/17/backblaze_how_not_to_evaluate_disk…>, they were criticized for making misleading claims about consumer-grade drives being more reliable than enterprise-grade ones. But I do think it is clear that the difference between them is not worth the cost. One important point I got from the latter is “replacing one drive takes about 15 minutes of work”. That quote ends with “Moral of the story: design for failure and buy the cheapest components you can”. Which seems the logical thing to do anyway. That sentence is followed by a smiley, but as far as I’m concerned, who needs the smiley? I also like this article <https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-smart-stats/> from their blog, where they go into which SMART statistics are worth looking at. The one that stands out is counter 187, uncorrectable read errors. If that goes above zero, then the disk is bad and should be replaced.

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Security Lapse Exposed a Chinese Smart City Surveillance System
by Peter Reutemann 04 May '19

04 May '19

'Smart cities are designed to make life easier for their residents: better traffic management by clearing routes, making sure the public transport is running on time and having cameras keeping a watchful eye from above. But what happens when that data leaks? One such database was open for weeks for anyone to look inside. Security researcher John Wethington found a smart city database accessible from a web browser without a password. He passed details of the database to TechCrunch in an effort to get the data secured. The database was an Elasticsearch database, storing gigabytes of data -- including facial recognition scans on hundreds of people over several months. The data was hosted by Chinese tech giant Alibaba. The customer, which Alibaba did not name, tapped into the tech giant's artificial intelligence-powered cloud platform, known as City Brain. "This is a database project created by a customer and hosted on the Alibaba Cloud platform," said an Alibaba spokesperson. "Customers are always advised to protect their data by setting a secure password." "We have already informed the customer about this incident so they can immediately address the issue. As a public cloud provider, we do not have the right to access the content in the customer database," the spokesperson added. The database was pulled offline shortly after TechCrunch reached out to Alibaba. But while Alibaba may not have visibility into the system, we did.' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/19/05/04/0235239 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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After Seven Years, The Gnu Project Releases GNU Guix 1.0.0
by Peter Reutemann 04 May '19

04 May '19

'LWN.net: Version 1.0.0 of the GNU Guix package manager has been released. "This 1.0 release is a major milestone for Guix. It represents 7 years of hard work with more than 40,000 commits by 260 people, 19 releases, and an equally amazing amount of work on documentation, translation, artwork, web design, mentoring, outreach, and many other activities that together have made it a thriving project." See this blog entry for more information. >From the announcement: Whether you're a software developer, a user, or a free software enthusiast, we hope GNU Guix will provide you with the tools to deploy and manage software with confidence and ease, qualities that are not usually associated with software deployment... GNU Guix is a transactional package manager and an advanced distribution of the GNU system that respects user freedom. Guix can be used on top of any system running the kernel Linux, or it can be used as a standalone operating system distribution for i686, x86_64, ARMv7, and AArch64 machines.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/19/05/03/2326215 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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DuckDuckGo Proposes 'Do-Not-Track Act of 2019'
by Peter Reutemann 04 May '19

04 May '19

'"When you turn on the setting in your browser that says 'Do Not Track', you probably expect to no longer be tracked on most websites you visit. Right? Well, you would be wrong," explains DuckDuckGo's blog. Their recent study found "a quarter of people have turned on this setting" -- representing hundreds of millions of web surfers -- and that most of them were unaware that in fact, "no law requires websites to respect your Do Not Track signals, and the vast majority of sites, including most all of the big tech companies, sadly choose to simply ignore them." Now they've written draft legislation -- "the Do-Not-Track Act of 2019" -- to "serve as a starting point" for legislators to close this loophole. SearchEngineLand reports: If the act picks up steam and passes into law, sites would be required to cease certain user tracking methods, which means less data available to inform marketing and advertising campaigns. The impact could also cascade into platforms that leverage consumer data, possibly making them less effective. For example, one of the advantages of advertising on a platform like Google or Facebook is the ability to target audiences. If a user enables DNT, the ads displayed to them when browsing those websites won't be informed by their external browsing history... This proposal is quite far from being signed into law, but the technology is already built into Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Edge and Internet Explorer. With the adoption of GDPR just a year behind us and presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren's proposed legislation to regulate "big tech companies" drawing more attention to digital privacy issues in Washington, the Do-Not-Track Act could be a realistic outcome. DuckDuckGo says they're announcing their draft legislation because "It is extremely rare to have such an exciting legislative opportunity like this, where the hardest work -- coordinated mainstream technical implementation and widespread consumer adoption -- is already done.... "We hope the Do-Not-Track Act of 2019 serves as a useful guide to start thinking seriously about this amazing legislative opportunity."' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/19/05/03/2316223 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Don’t Try To Claim That Public Wi-Fi Is “Inherently Insecure”
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 04 May '19

04 May '19

NordVPN has been told off by the UK Advertising Standards Authority about its misleading claims on the security of public wi-fi <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/05/01/nordvpn_tv_ad_rapped_advertising_s…>: Justifying its claims, NordVPN told the ASA that HTTPS encryption of webpages "did not mean the site was legitimate, nor was it any proof that the site had been security-hardened against intrusion from hackers". Yes, HTTPS encryption *is* supposed to mean that the site is legitimate. As for whether the site is security-hardened, it’s going to be just as insecure whether you access it via a VPN or not, isn’t it?

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Putin Signs Law To Create an Independent Russian Internet
by Peter Reutemann 02 May '19

02 May '19

'Russia is one step closer to creating its own, independent internet -- at least legally speaking. Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed into law new measures that would enable the creation of a national network, able to operate separately from the rest of the world, according to documents posted on a government portal this week. >From a report: For now, the network remains largely theoretical though, with few practical details disclosed. In concept, the new law aims to protect Russia from foreign online restrictions by creating what the Kremlin calls a "sustainable, secure and fully functioning" local internet. The legislation takes effect in November, state news agency RIA-Novosti reported. According to a summary from RIA-Novosti, the law calls for the creation of a monitoring and a management center supervised by Roskomnadzor, Russia's telecoms agency. The state agency will be charged with ensuring the availability of communication services in Russia in extraordinary situations. During such situations, it would also be empowered to cut off external traffic exchange, creating a purely Russian web' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/19/05/02/1535237 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Mozilla Says It Will Ban Firefox Add-ons With Obfuscated Code
by Peter Reutemann 02 May '19

02 May '19

'As Mozilla continues to try to make it safer than ever to use Firefox, the organization has updated its Add-on Policy so that any updates that include obfuscated code are explicitly banned. Mozilla has also set out in plain terms its blocking process for add-ons and extensions. While there is nothing surprising here, the clarification should mean that there are fewer causes for disputes when an add-on is blocklisted. The updated Add-on policy comes into force on June 10, so add-on developers have a little more than a month to take note of the changes and comply. Mozilla says that the move is designed to help it better deal with malicious extensions. Mozilla also plans to be more aggressive towards taking down extensions that break its policies, with a heavy focus on security issues. ZDNet adds: [...] Starting with June 10, Mozilla's team will also be more aggressive in blocking and disabling Firefox add-ons in users' browsers that are found to be violating one of the company's policies."We will continue to block extensions for intentionally violating our policies, critical security vulnerabilities, and will also act on extensions compromising user privacy or circumventing user consent or control," Nieman said.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/19/05/02/1653228 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Hamster Time Tracker on Ubuntu 18.04/Bionic
by Peter Reutemann 02 May '19

02 May '19

Hi everyone I've been using the Hamster Time Tracking applet (https://github.com/projecthamster/hamster) for many years, keeping track of my time spent on commercial projects. However, this project is undergoing a major refactoring and is no longer available available from the Ubuntu repositories. Sadly, a fact that I discovered after upgrading my Laptop from Linux Mint 18.2 to 19.1. Using instructions from a github comment (https://github.com/projecthamster/hamster/issues/356#issuecomment-385093502) I was able to get it installed and working on my Ubuntu 18.04 (which underpins Linux Mint 19.1), using packages from 17.10: Install some dependencies first: sudo apt-get install python-gnome2 python-gconf python-pyorbit liborbit2 libidl-2-0 Download the following libraries - python-wnck_2.32.0+dfsg-4_amd64.deb http://mirrors.edge.kernel.org/ubuntu/pool/universe/g/gnome-python-desktop/… - hamster-applet_2.91.3+git20120514.b9fec3e1-1ubuntu2_all.deb https://launchpadlibrarian.net/202355025/hamster-applet_2.91.3+git20120514.… Install the downloaded debian packages: sudo dpkg -i python-wnck_2.32.0+dfsg-4_amd64.deb hamster-applet_2.91.3+git20120514.b9fec3e1-1ubuntu2_all.deb Since this was a fresh install, I had to copy my old Hamster database across. The database is located in: $USER/.local/share/hamster-applet/hamster.db And we're back in business! :-) Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Blender Developers Find Old Linux Drivers Are Better Maintained Than Windows
by Peter Reutemann 01 May '19

01 May '19

'To not a lot of surprise compared to the world of proprietary graphics drivers on Windows where once the support is retired the driver releases stop, old open-source Linux OpenGL drivers are found to be better maintained. From a report: Blender developers working on shipping Blender 2.80 this July as the big update to this open-source 3D modeling software today rolled out the Linux GPU requirements for this next release. The requirements themselves aren't too surprising and cover NVIDIA GPUs released in the last ten years, AMD GCN for best support, and Intel Haswell graphics or newer. In the case of NVIDIA graphics they tend to do a good job maintaining their legacy driver branches. With the AMD Radeon and Intel graphics, Blender developers acknowledge older hardware may work better on Linux. ' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/19/05/01/191257 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Mark Shuttleworth Sees Increased Demand For Enterprise Ubuntu Linux Desktop
by Peter Reutemann 01 May '19

01 May '19

'Canonical's real money comes from the cloud and Internet of Things, but AI and machine learning developers are demanding -- and getting -- Ubuntu Linux desktop with enterprise support. From a report: In a wide-ranging conversation at Open Infrastructure Summit, Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Ubuntu Linux and its corporate parent Canonical, said: "We have seen companies signing up for Linux desktop support, because they want to have fleets of Ubuntu desktop for their artificial intelligence engineers." This development caught Shuttleworth by surprise. "We're starting actually now to commercially support the desktop in a way that we've never been asked to before," he said. Of course, Ubuntu has long been used by developers, but Shuttleworth explained, "Previously, those were kind of off the books, under the table. You know, 'Don't ask don't tell deployments.' "But now suddenly, it's the AI team and they've got to be supported."' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/19/04/30/1641242 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Vodafone Denies Bloomberg Report on Security Flaws in Huawei Equipment
by Peter Reutemann 30 Apr '19

30 Apr '19

'Vodafone denied a Bloomberg report on Tuesday that stated it had found "backdoors" hidden in Huawei equipment supplied to its Italian business dating back years, per BBC . From a report: What they're saying: Vodafone said the "backdoors" in the report were actually a common industry protocol: "The 'backdoor' that Bloomberg refers to is Telnet, which is a protocol that is commonly used by many vendors in the industry for performing diagnostic functions. It would not have been accessible from the internet. Bloomberg is incorrect in saying that this 'could have given Huawei unauthorised access to the carrier's fixed-line network in Italy.' In addition, we have no evidence of any unauthorised access. This was nothing more than a failure to remove a diagnostic function after development."' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/19/04/30/1542202 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Fedora 30 Linux Distro Is Here
by Peter Reutemann 30 Apr '19

30 Apr '19

'Fedora 30, the newest release of the venerable Linux distribution that serves (in part) as the staging environment for Red Hat Enterprise Linux, was released Tuesday, bringing with it a number of improvements and performance optimizations. From a report: The most exciting aspect, for workstation/desktop users at least, is the update to GNOME 3.32. Of course, that is hardly the only notable update -- the DNF package manager is getting a performance boost, for instance. In other words, this is a significant operating system upgrade that should delight both existing Fedora users and beginners alike. "Fedora 30 brings enhancements to all editions with updates to the common underlying packages, from bug fixes and performance tweaks to new versions. In Fedora 30, base updates include Bash shell 5.0, Fish 3.0, the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) 9 and Ruby 2.6. Fedora 30 also now uses the zchunk format for data compression within the DNF repository. When metadata is compressed using zchunk DNF will only download the differences between earlier copies of metadata and the current versions, saving on resources and increasing efficiency," says The Fedora Project.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/19/04/30/1742231 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Apache Software Foundation joins GitHub open source community
by Peter Reutemann 30 Apr '19

30 Apr '19

'Today we’re excited to welcome the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) to GitHub. Apache is the world’s largest open source foundation, with over 200 million lines of code managed by an all-volunteer community of 730 members and 7,000 code contributors. Over their 20 year history, one billion lines of code have been committed across three million code commits. In 2016, Apache made the decision to start integrating GitHub’s repository and tooling with their own services. After solidifying the integration over the years, they decided to simplify how they work and move all Git projects to GitHub. As of February 2019, Apache’s migration to GitHub was complete, enabling all these projects with a simple platform to host and review code, collaborate on projects, and build software alongside 31 million developers around the world.' -- source: https://github.blog/2019-04-29-apache-joins-github-community/ Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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How an Obsolete Medical Device With a Security Flaw Became a Must-Have For Some Patients With Type 1 Diabetes
by Peter Reutemann 30 Apr '19

30 Apr '19

'In 2014, a few hackers realized that the security flaw in certain Medtronic pumps could be exploited for a DIY revolution. Type 1 diabetes is a disease where the pancreas is unable to produce insulin to control blood sugar. For years, Boss (the anecdote in the story who purchased used insulin pumps from some dealer on Craiglist) had counted, down to the gram, the carbohydrates in every meal and told his pump how much insulin to dispense. [...] By 2014, the hardware components of a DIY artificial pancreas -- a small insulin pump that attaches via thin disposable tubing to the body and a continuous sensor for glucose, or sugar, that slips just under the skin -- were available, but it was impossible to connect the two. That's where the security flaw came in. The hackers realized they could use it to override old Medtronic pumps with their own algorithm that automatically calculates insulin doses based on real-time glucose data. It closed the feedback loop. They shared this code online as OpenAPS, and "looping," as it's called, began to catch on. Instead of micromanaging their blood sugar, people with diabetes could offload that work to an algorithm. In addition to OpenAPS, another system called Loop is now available. Dozens, then hundreds, and now thousands of people are experimenting with DIY artificial-pancreas systems -- none of which the Food and Drug Administration has officially approved. And they've had to track down discontinued Medtronic pumps. It can sometimes take months to find one. Obviously, you can't just call up Medtronic to order a discontinued pump with a security flaw. "It's eBay, Craigslist, Facebook. It's like this underground market for these pumps," says Aaron Kowalski, a DIY looper and also CEO of JDRF, a nonprofit that funds type 1 diabetes research. This is not exactly how a market for lifesaving medical devices is supposed to work. And yet, this is the only way it can work -- for now.' -- source: https://science.slashdot.org/story/19/04/29/2051257 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Finally ... The Vertical TV
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 29 Apr '19

29 Apr '19

I’ve been wondering when this was going to happen. Just as widescreen TVs and computer monitors have become standard, more and more video footage is being shared, whether on broadcast TV, social media or whatever, that was captured on mobile phones in *portrait* mode. So you get the awkward problem of filling in the gaps on the sides of the screen with something useless but unobtrusive (heavily-blurred portions of the actual content seems popular right now), and wasting all that display resolution to boot. Seems like going back to 4:3 monitors, or even an orientation-neutral square 1:1 shape, is not an option. But Samsung has the solution: a TV that can rotate to portrait mode! <https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/04/samsung-embraces-vertical-videos-wi…>

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Designers Release 'Aweigh', An Open Source Alternative to GPS
by Peter Reutemann 28 Apr '19

28 Apr '19

'"A team of student designers and engineers from the RCA and Imperial College have designed an open-source alternative to GPS, called Aweigh, that does not rely on satellites," reports the design magazine Dezeen. It's similar to the sextant, calculating positions by measuring the angular distances between the horizon and the sun.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/19/04/27/1813237 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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The Mysterious History of the MIT License
by Peter Reutemann 28 Apr '19

28 Apr '19

'Red Hat technology evangelist Gordon Haff explains why it's hard to say exactly when the MIT license created. Citing input from both Jim Gettys (author of the original X Window System) and Keith Packard (a senior member on the X Windows team), he writes that "The best single answer is probably 1987. But the complete story is more complicated and even a little mysterious."' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/19/04/28/0326207 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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How the Boeing 737 Max Disaster Looks to a Software Developer
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 27 Apr '19

27 Apr '19

The author of this article <https://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/aviation/how-the-boeing-737-max-disaste…> (archive.org copy at <https://web.archive.org/web/20190418200057/https://spectrum.ieee.org/aerosp…>) is both a pilot and a software developer. He looks into the root causes of the Boeing 737 MAX crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia. Basic points: * The new aircraft has sufficiently different airframe handling characteristics to be classified as a new model. * Boeing didn’t want it to be treated as a new model, because of the extra regulatory costs, pilot training etc this would entail. * So they implemented software (“MCAS”) that actively managed the handling characteristics to make it behave to pilots like previous 737 models. * They neglected to tell the pilots about the software. * It also turns out that correct operation of this software depends on a hardware component that is known to be unreliable. Commentary from Bruce Schneier <https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2019/04/excellent_analy.html> and Glyn Moody <https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190424/06571442075/shoddy-software-is-e…>.

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Inside the Team at Facebook That Dealt with the Christchurch Shooting
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 27 Apr '19

27 Apr '19

Interesting backgrounder <https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/inside-the-team-at-facebook-that-d…> on what went on at Facebook in the aftermath of Shooty McShootFace posting his “manifesto” rant and live-streaming his murderous rampage. Note that it took Facebook about an hour to determine that the video should be taken down. Was this too slow? Is there ever a time when leaving footage of such carnage up can serve a constructive purpose? Yes, surprisingly, there is. Further commentary: <https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190425/15315242087/behind-scenes-look-h…>

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Vodafone’s “Free E-Mail Forwarding For Life” Comes To End Of Life
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 26 Apr '19

26 Apr '19

When Vodafone shut down its e-mail services in 2017, it promised to continue autoforwarding e-mail to customers’ new addresses indefinitely. Well, now that “indefinitely” is coming to a definite end. It is just becoming too hard to maintain the service, particularly when other e-mail services start treating such auto-forwarded messages as spam or blocking them altogether. <https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=122233…>

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encrypted hard drive laptop
by Ian Young 25 Apr '19

25 Apr '19

Excuse me if not on topic ... Was somewhat bemused on looking through this article about trying to purchase a laptop with encryption. Partly because it mentions hardware aspects hitherto unknown to me. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/askjack/2019/apr/25/how-do-i-buy-a-l… Is this sort of thing easier with Linux?

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When Is Hate Speech Not Hate Speech?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 23 Apr '19

23 Apr '19

Is it “hate speech” to tell NRA supporters to “f*** off”? One high-profile user got banned (supposedly permanently) by Twitter for doing this sort of thing ... only to have the ban reversed, simply because there was so much support for his position. Seems like, when it comes to social media services clamping down on hate speech, they are simultaneously doing “not enough” and “too much”... <https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190421/16313642055/twitter-permanently-…>

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Copies Of Mueller Report Taken Down Because Of ... Copyright Infringement?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 23 Apr '19

23 Apr '19

For those pushing for mandatory copyright filtering, here’s yet another cautionary tale: copies of the (redacted) Mueller Report were taken down from PDF-hosting site Scribd, even though it is in the public domain. It seems clear this was an inadvertent result of automatic filtering policies; one of the many big-name publishers who had put out for-sale copies of the report had used automated processes to pass the information to Scribd, and these processes had blocked everybody’s attempts to upload copies of the report, even though it didn’t own the copyright. <https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190420/23233942052/scribds-takedown-pub…>

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Streaming TV Has Become An Expensive, Complicated Mess
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 22 Apr '19

22 Apr '19

<https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=122224…>: But this entertainment nirvana never actually arrived. First came pricey broadband services required to stream Internet video, often delivered by the same cable wires consumers longed to cut. Then came a proliferation of services - offered by Netflix, Amazon, Hulu plus and more - each with a bill of its own. Then came more boxes, wires and remotes. And finally came the question: How exactly do I get my Star Wars fix? Maybe a bit US-centric, but I think that also reflects the situation for streaming here as well. The article talks about “cord-cutting” -- as you may know, most people in the US have been watching conventional TV stations through cable connections, not through broadcasts. “Cord-cutting” is the increasing tendency of customers to terminate their cable TV accounts. But those same cable companies are also ISPs, and given the limitations on competition between ISPs in the US (thanks to the current regime’s allergy to enforcing meaningful net-neutrality legislation), those same companies will get the money from customers wanting to watch streaming video.

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Why are you still using Excel? Is it time to up your game and move to Python and Pandas or R?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 19 Apr '19

19 Apr '19

A heartfelt plea to habitual spreadsheet-wielders in favour of more advanced data-analysis tools <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8wO4ppE9L8>. Also mentions some of the more notorious cases of Excel bugs/misfeatures impacting the correctness of scientific research results.

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Olive Video Editor
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 17 Apr '19

17 Apr '19

Came across this tryout <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AvfMMjHX-M> of yet another open-source video editor, called Olive. The project is only about a year old, but it’s looking very promising. I recall Thomas wanting the ability to enable/disable clips in the timeline; I believe this one can do that. It may still be under development, but for what it’s worth, the reviewer didn’t suffer a single crash or loss of work during the video. ;)

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DARPA Wants To Make a Better, More Secure Version of WhatsApp
by Peter Reutemann 15 Apr '19

15 Apr '19

'The Defense and Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) appears to be in the process of developing its own ultra secure communication platform. The program is called "Resilient Anonymous Communication for Everyone," or RACE, and it will be similar to WhatsApp in that it will be for everyone to use. Trusted Reviews reports: The objectives of the program are to create a distributed messaging system that can do three things: Exist completely within a network; Provide confidentiality, integrity and availability of messaging; and Preserve privacy to any participant in the system. DARPA seem to be putting security front and center, and the description of the project claims that "compromised system data and associated networked communications should not be helpful for comprising any additional parts of the system," meaning that DARPA are keen that one breach shouldn't also give them a leg up on access to other parts of the system. So, will we soon be using a U.S government branded DARPA? Probably not, but the chances are that RACE will go some way to creating a messaging app that's resilient to attacks, with the protocol and security they find no doubt dripping through to consumer tech and features in the coming years. ' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/19/04/15/2052250 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Hackers Could Read Your Hotmail, MSN, and Outlook Emails by Abusing Microsoft Support
by Peter Reutemann 15 Apr '19

15 Apr '19

'On Saturday, Microsoft confirmed that some users of the company's email service had been targeted by hackers. A hacker or group of hackers had first broken into a customer support account for Microsoft, and then used that to gain access to information related to customers' email accounts such as the subject lines of their emails and who they've communicated with. But the issue is much worse than previously reported, with the hackers able to access email content from a large number of Outlook, MSN, and Hotmail email accounts, according to a source who witnessed the attack in action and described it before Microsoft's statement, as well as screenshots provided to Motherboard. Microsoft confirmed to Motherboard that hackers gained access to the content of some customers' emails.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/19/04/15/1554226 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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A Hacker Has Dumped Nearly One Billion User Records Over the Past Two Months
by Peter Reutemann 15 Apr '19

15 Apr '19

'A hacker who spoke with ZDNet in February about wanting to put up for sale the data of over one billion users is getting dangerously close to his goal after releasing another 65.5 million records last week and reaching a grand total of 932 million records overall. From a report: The hacker's name is Gnosticplayers, and he's responsible for the hacks of 44 companies, including last week's revelations. Since mid-February, the hacker has been putting batches of hacked data on Dream Market, a dark web marketplace for selling illegal products, such as guns, drugs, and hacking tools. He's released data from companies like 500px, UnderArmor, ShareThis, GfyCat, and MyHeritage, just to name the bigger names. Releases have been grouped in four rounds -- Round 1 (620 million user records), Round 2 (127 million user records), Round 3 (93 million user records), and Round 4 (26.5 million user records).' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/19/04/15/1920217 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Former Firefox VP on What It's Like To Be Both a Partner of Google and a Competitor via Google Chrome
by Peter Reutemann 15 Apr '19

15 Apr '19

'Sidewalk Labs, the urban innovation arm of Google's parent company Alphabet, plans to build a $1 billion high-tech neighborhood in Toronto. The problem? It is facing an opposition from residents who have called for its demise. As the backlash gains momentum, it could force Sidewalk Labs to abandon or alter its vision. On paper, Sidewalk Labs' idea arguably has some merits: It wishes to "set new standards" for how cities are designed and built. But some are apprehensive of Google's plans, because the company has a knack for assuming more control over things and killing local competition. Johnathan Nightingale, a former VP of Firefox, has seen such behavior first hand. He draws some parallels: I spent 8 years at Mozilla working on Firefox and for almost all of that time Google was our biggest partner. Our revenue share deal on search drove 90% of Mozilla's income. When I started at Mozilla in 2007, there was no Google Chrome and most folks we spoke with inside were Firefox fans. They were building an empire on the web, we were building the web itself. I think our friends inside Google genuinely believed that. At the individual level, their engineers cared about most of the same things we did. Their product and design folks made many decisions very similarly and we learned from watching each other. But Google as a whole is very different than individual Googlers. Google Chrome ads started appearing next to Firefox search terms. Gmail and Google Docs started to experience selective performance issues and bugs on Firefox. Demo sites would falsely block Firefox as "incompatible." All of this is stuff you're allowed to do to compete, of course. But we were still a search partner, so we'd say "hey what gives?" And every time, they'd say, "oops. That was accidental. We'll fix it in the next push in 2 weeks." Over and over. Oops. Another accident. We'll fix it soon. We want the same things. We're on the same team. There were dozens of oopses. Hundreds maybe? I'm all for "don't attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence" but I don't believe Google is that incompetent. This is not a thread about blaming Google for Firefox troubles though. We at Mozilla wear that ourselves, me more than anyone for my time as Firefox VP. But I see the same play happening here in my city and I don't like it. And for me it means two things: 1. The question is not whether individual Sidewalk Labs people have pure motives. I know some of them, just like I know plenty on the Chrome team. They're great people. But focus on the behavior of the organism as a whole. At the macro level, Google/Alphabet is very intentional. When Google wants to get a thing done, it is very effective. Mistakes happen, but when you see a sustained pattern of "oops" and delays from this organization -- you're being outfoxed. Get there faster than I did.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/19/04/15/0326208 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Is The Linux Desktop In Trouble?
by Peter Reutemann 14 Apr '19

14 Apr '19

'"I believe that, as Microsoft keeps moving Windows to a Desktop-as-a-Service model, Linux will be the last traditional PC desktop operating system standing," writes ZDNet contributing editor Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols. "But that doesn't mean I'm blind to its problems." First, even Linus Torvalds is tired of the fragmentation in the Linux desktop. In a recent [December 2018] TFiR interview with Swapnil Bhartiya, Torvalds said, "Chromebooks and Android are the path toward the desktop." Why? Because we don't have a standardized Linux desktop. For example, better Linux desktops, such as Linux Mint, provide an easy way to install applications, but under the surface, there are half-a-dozen different ways to install programs. That makes life harder for developers. Torvalds wishes "we were better at having a standardized desktop that goes across the distributions." Torvalds thinks there's been some progress. For software installation, he likes Flatpak. This software program, like its rival Snap, lets you install and maintain programs across different Linux distros. At the same time, this rivalry between Red Hat (which supports Flatpak) and Canonical (which backs Snap) bugs Torvalds. He's annoyed at how the "fragmentation of the different vendors have held the desktop back." None of the major Linux distributors -- Canonical, Red Hat, SUSE -- are really all that interested in supporting the Linux desktop. They all have them, but they're focused on servers, containers, the cloud, and the Internet of Things (IoT). That's, after all, is where the money is. Linux desktop distros "tend to last for five or six years and then real life gets in the way of what's almost always a volunteer effort..." the article argues. "It is not easy building and supporting a Linux desktop. It comes with a lot of wear and tear on its developers with far too little reward." His solution? Having a foundation create a common desktop for all Linux distros, so the Linux world could finally reap the benefits of standardization. "This would mean that many more Linux desktop developers could make a living from their work. That would improve the Linux desktop overall quality. "It's a virtuous cycle, which would help everyone."' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/19/04/13/0151256 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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android browsers rated
by Ian Young 14 Apr '19

14 Apr '19

Saw this while looking at the Exton Linux website. May be of interest to those with recent Android phones. https://joyofandroid.com/fastest-browsers-for-android/ ~ Ian Y

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