- wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

Why Do You Need A 4GHz Quadcore To Run Facebook?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 20 Feb '19

20 Feb '19

An example <https://twitter.com/themikepan/status/1093035372186034176> of how Facebook obfuscates its HTML rendering to defeat ad blockers. (Link found from this article <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/02/19/cern_browser_reawakened/> on a resurrection of the first Web browser from CERN).

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Linux Subsystem Files To Become Accessible via Windows File Explorer
by Peter Reutemann 19 Feb '19

19 Feb '19

'One of Windows Subsystem for Linux's more annoying tricks is it's hard to get at your Linux files from Windows. From a report: Oh, you can do it, but you take a real chance of ruining the files. To quote Microsoft, "DO NOT, under ANY circumstances, access, create, and/or modify files in your distro's filesystem using Windows apps, tools, scripts, consoles, etc." In the forthcoming Windows 10 April 2019 Update, aka Windows 10 19H1, this Linux file problem will finally be fixed. According to Craig Loewen, a Microsoft programming manger working on Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), "The next Windows update is coming soon and we're bringing exciting new updates to WSL with it! These include accessing the Linux file system from Windows, and improvements to how you manage and configure your distros in the command line."' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/19/02/19/2119226 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 Not To Build A PC, And How Not To Respond To Those Criticizing You For It
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 19 Feb '19

19 Feb '19

About four months ago, The Verge posted a video on its YouTube channel explaining the basics of building your own PC. Unfortunately, the video was full of mistakes, some small, some potentially more troublesome. Naturally this was pointed out in the comments. Also several other more techie-oriented channels responded with their own critique videos, some quite scathing. Rather than admit its mistake, the company decided to simply block comments for that video, and eventually take it down altogether. (Though not before it had accumulated a few thousand downvotes.) Now, within the last week or so, it has suddenly decided to go after those critique videos, and force them to be taken down on the basis of copyright infringement, because they contain extracts from the original item. Extracts which, under US fair use law, it was perfectly legal for them to include. Naturally, these heavy-handed attempts at censorship provoked a great deal of anger and protest, and the company has had to relent. If it was trying to downplay any lingering evidence of its previous embarrassment, this was absolutely not the way to do it. The phrase “Streisand Effect” immediately comes to mind, where an attempt by the eponymous celebrity to suppress pictures of the outside of her home, taken from public property, only caused them to be spread more widely. <https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=the+verge+pc+build+takedown> Origin of the Streisand Effect: <https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20030624/1231228.shtml>

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Inside the DNSpionage hacks that hijack domains at an unprecedented scale
by Peter Reutemann 18 Feb '19

18 Feb '19

'Since the beginning of the year, the US government and private security companies have been warning of a sophisticated wave of attacks that’s hijacking domains belonging to multiple governments and private companies at an unprecedented scale. On Monday, a detailed report provided new details that helped explain how and why the widespread DNS hijackings allowed the attackers to siphon huge numbers of email and other login credentials. The article, published by KrebsOnSecurity reporter Brian Krebs, said that, over the past few months, the attackers behind the so-called DNSpionage campaign have compromised key components of DNS infrastructure for more than 50 Middle Eastern companies and government agencies. Monday’s article goes on to report that the attackers, who are believed to be based in Iran, also took control of domains belonging to two highly influential Western services—the Netnod Internet Exchange in Sweden and the Packet Clearing House in Northern California. With control of the domains, the hackers were able to generate valid TLS certificates that allowed them to launch man-in-the-middle attacks that intercepted sensitive credentials and other data.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/02/inside-the-dnspionag… 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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SGM next Monday
by Peter Reutemann 18 Feb '19

18 Feb '19

Hi society members For those paying/active society members that are not on meetup.com, here is the link to our SGM next week: https://www.meetup.com/WaikatoLinuxUsersGroup/events/258276544/ It is just a very short one, before the actual WLUG meeting, to go through some charter stuff. (Apologies, I thought I sent out a reminder last month, but I can't seem to find that email, so probably got lost in work stress) 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
by Peter Reutemann 18 Feb '19

18 Feb '19

Hi everyone We have a meeting coming up next Monday: 'Ian Stewart will talk about his experience of attempting to give an old Huawei router a new lease of life using OpenWRT (https://openwrt.org/)' https://www.meetup.com/WaikatoLinuxUsersGroup/events/257884258/ 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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Researcher Scans All IP Addresses of Austria, Finds a Ton of Things That Shouldn't Be Online
by Peter Reutemann 18 Feb '19

18 Feb '19

'Christian Haschek scanned the entire Austrian IP space and found IP cameras, printers, and industrial control systems and a range of other devices that should not be online.' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/19/02/18/0017246 -- blog: https://blog.haschek.at/2019/i-scanned-austria.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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Re: [wlug] RNZ Mediawatch--Geeks’ Gathering Goes Under The Radar
by Ian Stewart 17 Feb '19

17 Feb '19

In the Mediawatch Radio NZ broadcast Geeks' gathering goes under the media radar, David Lane, president of the NZ Open Source Society<https://nzoss.org.nz/>, stated that all the talks [given at the Linux Conference in Christchurch] are all available for anyone to watch on youtube right now. The following link takes you to the youtube summary page with the links to videos of all the presentations... https://www.youtube.com/user/linuxconfau2019/videos There are over 160 videos, and the average video is about 40 minutes, so there is over one hundred hours of viewing. An alternative to using youtube is to go to... http://mirror.linux.org.au/pub/linux.conf.au/2019/ ... select the presentation room, the day of the week, and the presentation can be downloaded in either mp4 or webm format. It's good to see in the list of credits<http://mirror.linux.org.au/pub/linux.conf.au/2019/README.md> for the core team that helped to make the videos there is a Waikato man that we haven't seen for a while, William McKee. cheers, Ian.

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RNZ Mediawatch--Geeks’ Gathering Goes Under The Radar
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 15 Feb '19

15 Feb '19

Did you know that the annual linux.conf.au gathering was held in Christchurch last month? And that Linus Torvalds was there, wandering around the Canterbury University campus? Neither did I. Radio New Zealand’s Mediawatch program from a couple of weeks ago goes into the reasons why there was no media coverage of the event. Partly they might have been put off by some of the more esoteric and technical subjects being discussed. But in among them were some topics that should be considered more relevant to the “mainstream”, such as how automation could be doing away with many jobs being done by humans, leaving only the low-paying ones. The item includes an interview with NZOSS president Dave Lane, in which he incidentally mentions that Radio New Zealand’s online presence is built on Open Source, and that stuff.co.nz was, until recently, doing the same, and was also the one part of the Fairfax online media empire that was making money. Until that system was replaced with one based on expensive and proprietary Adobe products. And now they are not making nearly as much money. Coincidence? You be the judge. <https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/mediawatch/audio/2018680533/g…> By the way, it seems they have stopped making Ogg versions of items like these available for playback or download -- the links for the above one are only for an MP3 version. Also, I don’t agree that the distinction between “artificial intelligence” and “machine learning” is that clear-cut. I did a graduate course on AI back in the day, and it was already a pretty fuzzy concept back then. Except for one quite concise, mathematically-based definition I came across that appealed to me: “solving NP problems in polynomial time”.

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Open Source Project Aims To Make Ubuntu Usable on Arm-Powered Windows Laptops
by Peter Reutemann 14 Feb '19

14 Feb '19

'A group of programmers and device hackers are working to bring proper support for Ubuntu to Arm-powered Windows laptops, starting with first-generation Snapdragon 835 systems, like the HP Envy x2 and Asus NovaGo. From a report: The aarch64-laptops project provides prebuilt images for the aforementioned notebook PCs, as well as the Lenovo Miix 630. Although Ubuntu and other Linux distributions support aarch64 (ARMv8) by default, various obstacles including the design and configuration of Qualcomm Snapdragon processors make these default images not practically usable. The aarch64-laptops project developers are aiming to address these difficulties, though work is still ongoing. Presently, the TouchPad does not work properly on the Asus, with all three lacking proper support for on-board storage and Wi-Fi, which rely on UFS support. According to their documentation, this is being worked on upstream.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/19/02/14/1448221 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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R-Pi manufacturing moving out of UK.
by Ian Stewart 14 Feb '19

14 Feb '19

David Cleevely is an entrepreneur based in Cambridge, England. In 2014 he became Chairman of the Raspberry Pi Foundation and of Raspberry Pi Trading. Earlier this week he sent out the twitter: With a heavy heart I have sent the first email laying the ground for moving manufacturing out of the UK because of Brexit and the tariff and certification problems it will cause. Real businesses. Real employment. Real taxes. Lost. The twitter discussion is here<https://twitter.com/DavidCleevely/status/1094916009276919808>. ...Your next R-Pi may be Irish or Dutch. cheers, Ian.

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The BuzzFeed Bubble Bursts: Mass Layoffs Across Digital Media
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 14 Feb '19

14 Feb '19

Facebook and Google are not only sucking the oxygen out of advertising revenues for newspapers, they are also doing the same for online news outlets, such as BuzzFeed, the Huffington Post, and Vice. <https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/listeningpost/2019/02/buzzfeed-bubble-…>

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The Second Navstar GPS Rollover Approaches
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 12 Feb '19

12 Feb '19

The US GPS* protocol represents times using a 10-bit field for the week number. This has already rolled over once, from 1023 back to 0, back in 1999, which broke some devices that hadn’t been designed to cope with it. A second rollover is now approaching, as of April 6th (the first Saturday in April). Guess what’s going to happen this time ... <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/02/12/current_gps_epoch_ends/> *Seems the original official name “Navstar” has been dropped, and “GPS”, instead of being a generic term for such satellite-based navigation systems, is now the specific name of the US one.

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Bruce Schneier: Blockchain And Trust
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 12 Feb '19

12 Feb '19

Another thoughtful essay <https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2019/02/blockchain_and_.html> from the well-known computer-security guru: Trust is essential to society. As a species, humans are wired to trust one another. Society can't function without trust, and the fact that we mostly don't even think about it is a measure of how well trust works. .... Most blockchain enthusiasts have a unnaturally narrow definition of trust. They're fond of catchphrases like "in code we trust," "in math we trust," and "in crypto we trust." This is trust as verification. But verification isn't the same as trust. .... Any blockchain system will have to coexist with other, more conventional systems. Modern banking, for example, is designed to be reversible. Bitcoin is not. That makes it hard to make the two compatible, and the result is often an insecurity. Steve Wozniak was scammed out of $70K in bitcoin because he forgot this. .... Honestly, cryptocurrencies are useless. They're only used by speculators looking for quick riches, people who don't like government-backed currencies, and criminals who want a black-market way to exchange money.

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Android Phones Can Be Hacked Remotely By Viewing Malicious PNG Image
by Peter Reutemann 12 Feb '19

12 Feb '19

'An innocent-looking image -- sent either via the internet or text -- could open your Android phone up to hacking. "While this certainly doesn't apply to all images, Google discovered that a maliciously crafted PNG image could be used to hijack a wide variety of Androids -- those running Android Nougat (7.0), Oreo (8.0), and even the latest Android OS Pie (9.0)," reports CSO Online. From the report: The latest bulletin lists 42 vulnerabilities in total -- 11 of which are rated as critical. The most severe critical flaw is in Framework; it "could enable a remote attacker using a specially crafted PNG file to execute arbitrary code within the context of a privileged process." Although Google had no report of the security flaws being actively exploited, it remains to be seen if and how long it will take before attackers use the flaw for real-world attacks. Android owners were urged to patch as soon as security updates becomes available. But let's get real: Even if your Android still receives security updates, there's no telling how long it will be (weeks or months) before manufacturers and carriers get it together to push out the patches. ' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/19/02/11/2338245 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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Raspberry π Goes Retail
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 11 Feb '19

11 Feb '19

The Raspberry Pi Foundation has opened its first retail shop, in its home town of Cambridge <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/02/11/pi_shop/>. Some video here <https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-47143411>.

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Raspberry Pi Gets Its Own Brick-and-Mortar Retail Store
by Peter Reutemann 08 Feb '19

08 Feb '19

'The Raspberry Pi, believe it or not, now has its very own retail store. From a report: Located on the first floor of the Grand Arcade in Cambridge, U.K., the Raspberry Pi Store is open through the day, every day, and sells everything from Raspberry Pi microcomputers and accessories, to branded coffee mugs, soft toys, and more. [...] Despite its popularity -- more than 19 million Raspberry Pi units have been sold since 2012 -- the Raspberry Pi still feels a little niche to merit its own dedicated retail store. Indeed, most people who would be interested in building their own electronic gadgets from scratch are likely well-versed in the wonders of online retail. But conversely, that is likely the same reason why the Raspberry Pi Foundation wants its own space in the physical retail realm: it needs a new audience.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/19/02/07/1332202 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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LibreOffice 6.2 Brings New Interfaces, Performance Improvements To the Open Source Office Suite
by Peter Reutemann 08 Feb '19

08 Feb '19

'New interface styles and feature improvements are available in version 6.2 of LibreOffice -- the most popular open-source office suite -- released Thursday by The Document Foundation. As with any software update, bug fixes and feature enhancements are present, making this release a significant upgrade, particularly for users coming from Microsoft Office, or working with files created with those programs. LibreOffice now supports SVG-based icons for toolbars in the Breeze, Colibre, and Elementary icon sets as an experimental feature, to better support HiDPI displays increasingly found in notebook PCs. The Elementary icon set was also improved significantly, adding a 32px PNG version, and fixing inconsistencies between the 16, 24, and 32px versions, as well as adding more icons across the set to prevent reverting to defaults. In LibreOffice 6.2, the "Tabbed" interface is now available for Writer, Calc, Impress, and Draw, and is considered sufficiently stable to be a default option. This interface mimics the oft-maligned "Ribbon interface" in Office 2007. The "traditional" Office-style toolbar is default, though the Tabbed interface can be enabled through the "View > User Interface" menus.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/19/02/07/1737222 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 Wins Annie Award
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 06 Feb '19

06 Feb '19

The “Annies” are the annual awards given out by the International Animated Film Society, aka ASIFA-Hollywood. As part of these, there is a special prize known as the Ub Iwerks award for technical advancement in the art of animation, named for the Disney animator who so famously brought Mickey Mouse to life, back in the day. This is only given out in any particular year when the judges feel that somebody deserves it. Well, the latest winner is none other than Blender, the open-source CG software. Past winners have included software, companies and people, but this appears to be the first time that a piece of Free software has been so honoured. <http://www.cgchannel.com/2018/12/blender-creator-ton-roosendaal-wins-annie-…> <https://www.blender.org/news/ton-roosendaal-and-blender-to-receive-asifa-ho…>

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Old Computer Gear
by Andrew Crosby 06 Feb '19

06 Feb '19

Hi Guys I'm moving cities shortly and have a couple of decades of old computer and electronic gear to pass along. Mainly periferals and parts from AT/ATX era, Also have some old laptops getting up core2duo era, and not sure what else I'll find while I pack. Anyone around here interested in that sort of stuff. Cheers

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Attackers Can Track Kids' Locations Via Connected Watches
by Peter Reutemann 31 Jan '19

31 Jan '19

'A gamut of kids' GPS-tracking watches are exposing sensitive data involving 35,000 children -- including their location, in real time. Researchers from Pen Test Partners specifically took a look at the Gator portfolio of watches from TechSixtyFour. The Gator line had been in the spotlight in 2017 for having a raft of vulnerabilities, called out by the Norwegian Consumers Council in its WatchOut research. "A year on, we decided to have a look at the Gator watch again to see how their security had improved," said Vangelis Stykas, in a Tuesday posting. "Guess what: a train wreck. Anyone could access the entire database, including real-time child location, name, parents' details etc. Not just Gator watches either -- the same back end covered multiple brands and tens of thousands of watches." "At issue was an easy-to-exploit, severe privilege-escalation vulnerability: The system failed to validate that the user had the appropriate permission to take admin control," reports Threatpost. "An attacker with access to the watch's credentials simply needed to change the user level parameter in the backend to an admin designation, which would provide access to all account information and all watch information." ' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/19/01/30/2337239 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 Are Passing Around a Megaleak of 2.2 Billion Records
by Peter Reutemann 31 Jan '19

31 Jan '19

'When hackers breached companies like Dropbox and LinkedIn in recent years -- stealing 71 and 117 million passwords, respectively -- they at least had the decency to exploit those stolen credentials in secret, or sell them for thousands of dollars on the dark web. Now, it seems, someone has cobbled together those breached databases and many more into a gargantuan, unprecedented collection of 2.2 billion unique usernames and associated passwords, and is freely distributing them on hacker forums and torrents, throwing out the private data of a significant fraction of humanity like last year's phone book. Earlier this month, security researcher Troy Hunt identified the first tranche of that mega-dump, named Collection #1 by its anonymous creator, a set of cobbled-together breached databases Hunt said represented 773 million unique usernames and passwords. Now other researchers have obtained and analyzed an additional vast database called Collections #2-5, which amounts to 845 gigabytes of stolen data and 25 billion records in all. After accounting for duplicates, analysts at the Hasso Plattner Institute in Potsdam, Germany, found that the total haul represents close to three times the Collection #1 batch.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/19/01/31/1452201 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 Security Flaw Impacts 5G, 4G, and 3G Telephony Protocols
by Peter Reutemann 31 Jan '19

31 Jan '19

'A new vulnerability has been discovered in the upcoming 5G cellular mobile communications protocol. Researchers have described this new flaw as more severe than any of the previous vulnerabilities that affected the 3G and 4G standards. From a report: Further, besides 5G, this new vulnerability also impacts the older 3G and 4G protocols, providing surveillance tech vendors with a new flaw they can abuse to create next-gen IMSI-catchers that work across all modern telephony protocols. This new vulnerability has been detailed in a research paper named "New Privacy Threat on 3G, 4G, and Upcoming5G AKA Protocols," published last year. According to researchers, the vulnerability impacts AKA, which stands for Authentication and Key Agreement, a protocol that provides authentication between a user's phone and the cellular networks. The AKA protocol works by negotiating and establishing keys for encrypting the communications between a phone and the cellular network.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/19/01/31/1913237 Yeah, don't think so that I'm gonna upgrade from my stone tablets any time soon... 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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Criminals Are Tapping Into the Phone Network Backbone to Empty Bank Accounts
by Peter Reutemann 31 Jan '19

31 Jan '19

'Sophisticated hackers have long exploited flaws in SS7, a protocol used by telecom companies to coordinate how they route texts and calls around the world. Those who exploit SS7 can potentially track phones across the other side of the planet, and intercept text messages and phone calls without hacking the phone itself. From a report: This activity was typically only within reach of intelligence agencies or surveillance contractors, but now Motherboard has confirmed that this capability is much more widely available in the hands of financially-driven cybercriminal groups, who are using it to empty bank accounts. So-called SS7 attacks against banks are, although still relatively rare, much more prevalent than previously reported. Motherboard has identified a specific bank -- the UK's Metro Bank -- that fell victim to such an attack. The news highlights the gaping holes in the world's telecommunications infrastructure that the telco industry has known about for years despite ongoing attacks from criminals. The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), the defensive arm of the UK's signals intelligence agency GCHQ, confirmed that SS7 is being used to intercept codes used for banking. "We are aware of a known telecommunications vulnerability being exploited to target bank accounts by intercepting SMS text messages used as 2-Factor Authentication (2FA)," The NCSC told Motherboard in a statement. "Some of our clients in the banking industry or other financial services; they see more and more SS7- based [requests],â Karsten Nohl, a researcher from Security Research Labs who has worked on SS7 for years, told Motherboard in a phone call. "All of a sudden you have someone's text messages."' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/19/01/31/1925241 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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Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3+ Launches for the Tiny Linux Computers from $25
by Peter Reutemann 30 Jan '19

30 Jan '19

'Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3+ follows on the footsteps of the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3 (CM3) series announced in January 2017, offering owners of the tiny Linux computers a general-purpose, cost-efficient, and much simpler SBC (Single-board Computer), allowing them to slot it in and out of any device. It comes with 10x the ARM performance, 8x the Flash capacity, and 2x the RAM capacity of CM3. While Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3+ uses the same board as CM3, it brings improved thermal design, the Broadcom BCM2837B0 application processor from the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ single-board computer, but running at 1.2GHz instead of 1.4GHz, up to 32GB eMMC Flash memory, improved PCB thermal design to better support high loads without getting hot, and 1GB LPDDR2 SDRAM.' -- source: https://news.softpedia.com/news/raspberry-pi-compute-module-3-plus-launches… 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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Get started with eDEX-UI, a Tron-influenced terminal program for tablets and desktops
by Peter Reutemann 30 Jan '19

30 Jan '19

'eDEX-UI is a cross-platform terminal program designed for tablets and desktops that was inspired by the user interface in Tron. It has five terminals in a tabbed interface, so it is easy to switch between tasks, as well as useful displays of system information.' -- source: https://opensource.com/article/19/1/productivity-tool-edex-ui 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 Mint 19.1: A sneaky popular distro skips upheaval, offers small upgrades
by Peter Reutemann 29 Jan '19

29 Jan '19

'While Ubuntu and Red Hat grabbed most of the Linux headlines last year, Linux Mint, once the darling of the tech press, had a relatively quiet year. Perhaps that's understandable with IBM buying Red Hat and Canonical moving back to the GNOME desktop. For the most part Linux Mint and its developers seemed to keep their heads down, working away while others enjoyed the limelight. Still, the Linux Mint team did churn out version 19, which brought the distro up to the Ubuntu 18.04 base. Mint 18.1 review: Forget about Wayland and get comfy with the command line While the new release may not have garnered mass attention, and probably isn't anyone's top pick for "the cloud," Linux Mint nevertheless remains the distro I see most frequently in the real world. When I watch a Linux tutorial or screen cast on YouTube, odds are I'll see the Linux Mint logo in the toolbar. When I see someone using Linux at the coffee shop, it usually turns out to be Linux Mint. When I ask fellow Linux users which distro they use, the main answers are Ubuntu... and Linux Mint. All of that is anecdotal, but it still points to a simple truth. For a distro that has seen little press lately, Linux Mint manages to remain popular with users. There's a good reason for that popularity: Linux Mint just works. It isn't "changing the desktop computer paradigm," or "innovating" in "groundbreaking" ways. The team behind Mint is just building a desktop operating system that looks and functions a lot like every other desktop operating system you've used, which is to say you'll be immediately comfortable and stop thinking about your desktop and start using it to do actual work. It's worth asking then, why switch from what I have now to Mint? Well, if you're happy with what you have now, stick with whatever it is. But if "it" happens to be Windows 10, well, hope you haven't tried to upgrade yet. Or if what you have now happens to be Ubuntu prior to 18.04 and you're dreading the upgrade to GNOME, suddenly Mint is worth a look. The project recently released version 19.1, which comes in three desktop flavors. There are two homegrown projects, Cinnamon (really Linux Mint's main desktop) and MATE, which started as a kind of Cinnamon light and has since become a very capable desktop in its own right. On top of those, there's also an XFCE version. Previously, there was also a KDE version of Linux Mint, but it was dropped last year because the KDE stack is different enough that all the bits that make Linux Mint, well, Minty, just didn't work with KDE. Diehard Mint and KDE fans can still get KDE working via a PPA, but it's not officially supported by Linux Mint.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/01/linux-mint-19-1-a-sneaky-popular-di… 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 blocks auto-playing sound by default
by Peter Reutemann 29 Jan '19

29 Jan '19

'Few things are more annoying when browsing the internet than media that plays automatically, particularly if it makes noise. Mozilla is hip to this, and beginning in version 66, its Firefox browser will block automatically-playing audio by default. Websites won't be able to play audio without user interaction. On desktop, a notification pops up asking whether you want the website to play media automatically, while on mobile, media will play silently until you interact with the player. The beta version of Firefox 66 for Android is hitting the Play Store today. The APK of the beta isn't available just yet, but you can grab a nightly version of Firefox 66 on APK Mirror. The stable release is expected to be available in March.' -- source: https://www.androidpolice.com/2019/01/29/firefox-66-blocks-auto-playing-sou… 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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Microsoft Project Manager Says Mozilla Should Get Down From Its 'Philosophical Ivory Tower, ' Cease Firefox Development
by Peter Reutemann 29 Jan '19

29 Jan '19

'A Microsoft program manager has caused a stir on Twitter over the weekend by suggesting that Firefox-maker Mozilla should give up on its own rendering engine and move on with Chromium. "Thought: It's time for @mozilla to get down from their philosophical ivory tower. The web is dominated by Chromium, if they really 'cared' about the web, they would be contributing instead of building a parallel universe that's used by less than five percent?" wrote Kenneth Auchenberg, who builds web developer tools for Microsoft's Visual Studio Code. Auchenberg's post referred to Mozilla's response to Microsoft's announcement in December that it would scrap Edge's EdgeHTML rendering engine for Chromium's. The move will leave Firefox's Gecko engine as the only alternative to Chromium, which is used by Opera and dozens of other browsers. Few people agreed with Auchenberg, including engineers from both Mozilla and Chromium. Long-serving Mozillian Asa Dotzler was not impressed. "Just because your employer gave up on its own people and technology doesn't mean that others should follow," Dotzler replied to Auchenberg. Auchenberg clarified that he didn't want to see Mozilla vanish, but said it should reorganize into a research institution "instead of trying to to justify themselves with the 'protectors of the web' narrative."' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/19/01/29/0016211 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 65 Arrives With Content Blocking Controls, and Support for WebP and AV1
by Peter Reutemann 29 Jan '19

29 Jan '19

'Firefox 65, the latest version of Mozilla's web browser, is now available for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android platforms. The release brings simplified Content Blocking controls for Enhanced Tracking Protection, support for WebP image support with the Windows client getting an additional feature: support for AV1 format. From a report: Across all platforms, Firefox can now handle Google's WebP image format. WebP supports both lossy and lossless compression and promises the same image quality as existing formats at smaller file sizes. Firefox 65 for desktop brings redesigned controls for the Content Blocking section to let users choose their desired level of privacy protection. You can access it by either clicking on the small "i" icon in the address bar and clicking on the gear on the right side under Content Blocking or by going to Preferences, Privacy & Security, and then Content Blocking. Next, Firefox now supports AV1, the royalty-free video codec developed by the Alliance for Open Media. AV1 improves compression efficiency by more than 30 percent over the codec VP9, which it is meant to succeed. Lastly, Firefox's new Task Manager page (just navigate to about:performance or find it under "Other" in the main menu) is complete. Introduced in Firefox 64, Task Manager now reports memory usage for tabs and add-ons.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/19/01/29/1442237 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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Do Debian APT and PHP Pear Patches Highlight Vulnerability In Package Management Infrastructure?
by Peter Reutemann 27 Jan '19

27 Jan '19

'"Time and again, security experts and vendors alike will recommend to organizations and end users to keep software and systems updated with the latest patches," reports eWeek. "But what happens when the application infrastructure that is supposed to deliver those patches itself is at risk?" That's what open-source and Linux users were faced with this past week with a pair of projects reporting vulnerabilities. On January 22, the Debian Linux distribution reported a vulnerability in its APT package manager that is used by end users and organizations to get application updates. That disclosure was followed a day later, on January 23, with the PHP PEAR (PHP Extension and Application Repository) shutting down its primary website, warning that it was the victim of a data breach. PHP PEAR is a package manager that is included with many Linux distributions as part of the open-source PHP programming language binaries.... In the Debian APT case, a security researcher found a flaw, reported it, and the open-source project community responded rapidly, fixing the issue. With PHP PEAR issue, researchers with the Paranoids FIRE (Forensics, Incident Response and Engineering) Team reported that they discovered a tainted file on the primary PEAR website... Both PHP PEAR and Debian have issued updates fixing their respective issues. While both projects are undoubtably redoubling their efforts now with different security technologies and techniques, the simple fact is that the two issues highlight a risk with users trusting updating tools and package management systems. ' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/19/01/26/0350252 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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Hope for Linux
by Ian Stewart 24 Jan '19

24 Jan '19

I am one of the volunteers that looks after the IT equipment at a community centre. The equipment includes 5 x PC's located in a room for the public to use. These PC's were originally donated with a single drive that has Windows 10. We add another drive which we make the Sata-0 drive, and move the cable for the Windows 10 drive so it is on the Sata-2 port. On the drive that we have added we install Ubuntu-Mate. By default, when the PC's power on, they boot up Ubuntu-Mate. Over the summer holidays the main users of these PC's are local children in the age range of 6 to 10 years old. I recently walked into the room which has the PC's and one of children recognised me as the IT repair man. The boy came over to me, and pointing at one of the PC's he said, "It's broken. It doesn't work." I looked across at the PC and saw that it was displaying a Windows 10 screen that appeared to be functioning OK, and noticed that there was nobody sitting using this computer. The other four PC's were running Ubuntu-Mate and children were busy using them. I said to the boy, "Yes it does look like its broken. I'll fix it." I proceeded to shutdown Windows 10, and found the Ubuntu-Mate drive had failed to the extent that it wasn't being recognised by the BIOS. I replaced the failed drive, installed Ubuntu-Mate from a USB stick, and told the boy it was fixed and he could use it again. I thought it was an encouraging sign that what these children perceive as a normal PC is one that is running Ubuntu-Mate and what they perceive as a broken PC is one that is running Windows 10. cheers, Ian

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If you installed PEAR PHP in the last 6 months, you may be infected
by Peter Reutemann 24 Jan '19

24 Jan '19

'Officials with the widely used PHP Extension and Application Repository have temporarily shut down most of their website and are urging users to inspect their systems after discovering hackers replaced the main package manager with a malicious one. “If you have downloaded this go-pear.phar [package manager] in the past six months, you should get a new copy of the same release version from GitHub (pear/pearweb_phars) and compare file hashes,” officials wrote on the site’s blog. "If different, you may have the infected file.” The officials didn’t say when the hack of their Web server occurred or precisely what the malicious version of go-pear.phar did to infected systems. Initial indications, however, look serious. For starters, the advice applies to anyone who has downloaded the package manager in the past six months. That suggests the hack may have occurred in the timeframe of last July, and no one noticed either it or the tainted download until this week.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/01/pear-php-site-breach… 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 Web Apps Can Turn Browser Extensions Into Backdoors
by Peter Reutemann 24 Jan '19

24 Jan '19

'"Threatpost has a link to some recent research about ways web pages can exploit browser extensions to steal information or write files," writes Slashdot reader jbmartin6. "Did we need another reason to be deeply suspicious of any browser extension? Not only do they spy on us for their makers, now other people can use them to spy on us as well. The academic paper is titled 'Empowering Web Applications with Browser Extensions' (PDF)." From the report: "An attacker [uses] a script that is present in a web application currently running in the user browser. The script either belongs to the web application or to a third party. The goal of the attacker is to interact with installed extensions, in order to access user sensitive information. It relies on extensions whose privileged capabilities can be exploited via an exchange of messages with scripts in the web application," researchers wrote. They added, "Even though content scripts, background pages and web applications run in separate execution contexts, they can establish communication channels to exchange messages with one another... APIs [are used] for sending and receiving (listening for) messages between the content scripts, background pages and web applications." The researcher behind the paper focused on a specific class of web extension called "WebExtensions API," a cross-browser extensions system compatible with major browsers including Chrome, Firefox, Opera and Microsoft Edge. After analyzing 78,315 extensions that used the specific WebExtension API, it found 3,996 that were suspicious. While it seems voluminous, they noted that research found a small number of vulnerable extensions overall, and that concern should be measured. However, "browser vendors need to review extensions more rigorously, in particular take into consideration the use of message passing interfaces in extensions."' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/19/01/23/2256252 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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Why Free Software Evangelist Richard Stallman is Haunted by Stalin's Dream
by Peter Reutemann 23 Jan '19

23 Jan '19

'Richard Stallman recently visited Mandya, a small town about 60 miles from Bengaluru, India, to give a talk. On the sidelines, Indian news outlet FactorDaily caught up with Stallman for an interview. In the wide-ranging interview, Stallman talked about companies that spy on users, popular Android apps, media streaming and transportation apps, smart devices, DRM, software backdoors, subscription software, and Apple and censorship. An excerpt from the interview: If you are carrying a mobile phone, it is always tracking your movements and it could have been modified to listen to the conversations around you. I call this product Stalin's dream. What would Stalin have wanted to hand out to every inhabitant of the former Soviet Union? Something to track that person's movements and listen to the person's conservations. Fortunately, Stalin could not do it because the technology didn't exist. Unfortunately for us, now it does exist and most people have been pressured or lured into carrying around such a Stalin's dream device, but not me. I am suspicious of new digital technology. I expect it to have new malicious functionalities. It has happened so many times that I have learned to expect this, so I have always checked before I start using some new digital technology. I asked to find out what is nasty about it and I found out these two things. It was something like 20 years ago, and I decided it was my duty as a citizen to refuse, regardless of whatever convenience it might offer me. To surrender my freedom in this way was failing to defend a free society. This is why I do not have a portable phone. I refuse to carry a portable phone. I never have one and unless things change, I never will. I do use portable phones, lots of different ones. If I needed to call someone right now, I would ask one of you, "Could you please make a call for me?" If I am on a bus and it is late and I need to tell somebody that I am going to arrive late, there is always some other passenger in the bus who will make a call for me or send a text for me. Practically speaking, it is not that hard.' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/19/01/23/1759203 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 Proposes Changes To Chromium Browser That Will Break Content-Blocking Extensions, Including Various Ad Blockers
by Peter Reutemann 23 Jan '19

23 Jan '19

'"Google engineers have proposed changes to the open-source Chromium browser that will break content-blocking extensions, including various ad blockers," reports The Register. "The drafted changes will also limit the capabilities available to extension developers, ostensibly for the sake of speed and safety. Chromium forms the central core of Google Chrome, and, soon, Microsoft Edge." From the report: In a note posted Tuesday to the Chromium bug tracker, Raymond Hill, the developer behind uBlock Origin and uMatrix, said the changes contemplated by the Manifest v3 proposal will ruin his ad and content blocking extensions, and take control of content away from users. Manifest v3 refers to the specification for browser extension manifest files, which enumerate the resources and capabilities available to browser extensions. Google's stated rationale for making the proposed changes is to improve security, privacy and performance, and supposedly to enhance user control. But one way Google would like to achieve these goals involves replacing the webRequest API with a new one, declarativeNetRequest. The webRequest API allows extensions to intercept network requests, so they can be blocked, modified, or redirected. This can cause delays in web page loading because Chrome has to wait for the extension. In the future, webRequest will only be able to read network requests, not modify them. The declarativeNetRequest allows Chrome (rather than the extension itself) to decide how to handle network requests, thereby removing a possible source of bottlenecks and a potentially useful mechanism for changing browser behavior. The report notes that Adblock Plus "should still be available" since "Google and other internet advertising networks apparently pay Adblock Plus to whitelist their online adverts." ' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/19/01/23/0048202 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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Wine 4.0 Released With Vulkan Support, Initial Direct3D 12 and Better HiDPI
by Peter Reutemann 23 Jan '19

23 Jan '19

'Michael Larabel writes via Phoronix: Wine 4.0 is now officially available as the new annual stable release to Wine for running Windows programs and games on Linux and other operating systems. Following seven weekly release candidates, Wine 4.0 was ready to ship today as judged by Wine founder Alexandre Julliard. Wine 4.0 is a big release bringing initial Vulkan graphics API support, Direct3D CSMT is enabled by default, early Direct3D 12 support via VKD3D, continued HiDPI work, various OpenGL improvements, multi-sample D3D texture support, 64-bit improvements, continued Android support, and much more.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/19/01/23/0124236 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
by Peter Reutemann 21 Jan '19

21 Jan '19

Hi everyone I'm using 2D animation as theme for next Monday's meeting: "Let's pool our resources and figure out/discover software that can be used for 2D animations. Open-source candidates could be GIMP (https://www.gimp.org/) and Synfig Studio (https://www.synfig.org/)" https://www.meetup.com/WaikatoLinuxUsersGroup/events/257884244/ 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 Large Number of Top Free VPN Apps Either Have Chinese Ownership or Are Based in China
by Peter Reutemann 21 Jan '19

21 Jan '19

'William Chalk, reporting for HackerNoon: After big names like Whatsapp, Snapchat, and Facebook, VPNs are the most searched-for applications in the world. "VPN" is the second-highest non-branded search term behind "games", and free apps completely dominate the search results. The most popular applications have amassed hundreds of millions of installs between them worldwide, yet there seems to be very little attention paid to the companies behind them, and very little scrutiny done on behalf of the marketplaces hosting them. We investigated the top free VPN apps in the App Store and Google Play Store. We found that very few of these hugely popular apps do anywhere near enough to deserve the trust of those looking to protect their privacy online. We recorded the top 20 free apps in the search results for "VPN" in the App and Play Store for UK and US locales. In total, these applications have been downloaded 80 million times from Google and 4 million times each month from Apple. Our investigation discovered that over half of the top free VPN apps either have Chinese ownership or are actually based in China, which has aggressively clamped down on VPN services in recent years and maintains an iron grip on the internet within its borders. Furthermore, we found the majority of these apps have insufficient formal privacy protections and non-existent user support.' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/19/01/21/1425201 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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Popular WordPress Plugin WPML Hacked By Angry Former Employee
by Peter Reutemann 20 Jan '19

20 Jan '19

'A very popular WordPress plugin was hacked over the weekend after a hacker defaced its website and sent a mass message to all its customers revealing the existence of supposed unpatched security holes. From a report: In a follow-up mass email, the plugin's developers blamed the hack on a former employee, who also defaced their website. The plugin in question is WPML (or WP MultiLingual), the most popular WordPress plugin for translating and serving WordPress sites in multiple languages. According to its website, WPML has over 600,000 paying customers and is one of the very few WordPress plugins that is so reputable that it doesn't need to advertise itself with a free version on the official WordPress.org plugins repository. But on Saturday, ET timezone, the plugin faced its first major security incident since its launch in 2007. The attacker, which the WPML team claims is a former employee, sent out a mass email to all the plugin's customers.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/19/01/20/2156231 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 Quest For Free/Libre Non-Linear Video Editors
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 20 Jan '19

20 Jan '19

A good summary <http://libregraphicsworld.org/blog/entry/the-quest-for-sustainable-free-lib…> of the state of various efforts to create Free Software video editor apps, covering all the ones you have likely heard of, and maybe some you haven’t.

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Today Is The 110th Of October
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 17 Jan '19

17 Jan '19

Microsoft’s “October 2018” Windows 10 update takes another step towards general rollout: Select Windows 10 devices are now automatically downloading Microsoft’s troubled 1809 update, according to the support page for the operating system. <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/17/windows_10_roll_out/>

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Collection 1 Data Breach Exposes More Than 772 Million Email Addresses
by Peter Reutemann 17 Jan '19

17 Jan '19

'A collection of almost 773 million unique email addresses and just under 22 million unique passwords were exposed on cloud service MEGA. Security researcher Troy Hunt said the collection of data, dubbed Collection #1, totaled over 12,000 separate files and more than 87GB of data. ZDNet reports: "What I can say is that my own personal data is in there and it's accurate; right email address and a password I used many years ago," Hunt wrote. "In short, if you're in this breach, one or more passwords you've previously used are floating around for others to see." Some passwords, including his own, have been "dehashed", that is converted back to plain text. Hunt said he gained the information after multiple people reached out to him with concerns over the data on MEGA, with the Collection #1 dump also being discussed on a hacking forum. "The post on the forum referenced 'a collection of 2000+ dehashed databases and Combos stored by topic' and provided a directory listing of 2,890 of the files," Hunt wrote. The collection has since been removed. You can visit Hunt's Have I Been Pwned service to see if you are affected by this br' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/19/01/17/0552201 Link to have I been Pwned: https://haveibeenpwned.com/ 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 Kills Its Experimental Firefox Test Pilot Program 3 Years After Launch
by Peter Reutemann 16 Jan '19

16 Jan '19

'Mozilla has announced that it is closing Firefox Test Pilot, an experimental program it launched three years ago. Firefox Test Pilot allowed users to try out potential new built-in Firefox features to understand if they are popular with users. The company says the program was used by an average of 100,000 daily users. A report adds: It's worth noting here that Test Pilot is separate from the various beta versions of Firefox, which are early iterations designed to fine-tune features intended for the prime-time Firefox. Test Pilot, on the other hand, is more about Mozilla dipping its toes in the water to see whether a new feature is worth pursuing at all in the main version of the app, or even as a standalone product. Ultimately, it allows Firefox developers to take bigger risks with their ideas.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/19/01/16/1752250 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 Guy Made a Computer Mouse That is Also a Functional Laptop
by Peter Reutemann 14 Jan '19

14 Jan '19

'A YouTube user who goes by Electronic Grenade has designed a computer mouse that is also a functional laptop. From a report: As detailed in a video published on Sunday, the computer mouse computer consists of a 3d-printed mouse, a Raspberry Pi microcontroller, a small keyboard, and a handful of components that were taken from a normal computer mouse. "Even though the screen is attached to the mouse, the sensitivity of the mouse makes it not that hard to follow along with what is happening on the screen," Electronic Grenade said in the video. Nevertheless, the mouse does have its faults. According to Electronic Grenade, a few resource intensive applications will occasionally cause the mouse computer to crash.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/19/01/14/1656224 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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Gimp presentation
by John 14 Jan '19

14 Jan '19

Hi All, Is anyone prepared to share their knowledge on some of the aspects of Gimp at one of the meetings. My particular interests are: Working with layers. Creating and editing animations. Quick and dirty brush tips Air brush settings etc. Cheers John..

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GNOME Internet Radio Locator 1.6.0 Released
by Peter Reutemann 14 Jan '19

14 Jan '19

'GNOME Internet Radio Locator 1.6.0 is now freely available for GNOME systems. The 1.6.0 release is a stable release with Internet radio stations from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, England, Scotland, France and Belgium, as well as U.S.A., Canada, Mexico and Guatemala, mapped for GNOME Maps and city text search interface with auto-completion for 76 world cities that are featured in this release. You may download the 1.6.0 release of GNOME Internet Radio Locator here and download packages for Fedora 28 and 29 on x86_64 here' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/19/01/13/209247 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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Vga..
by John 12 Jan '19

12 Jan '19

Hi All, If anyone has a VGA cable that they do not love anymore could you please bring to the meeting for me as I just gave my one to my neighbor. Dumb I know but that is what I do all the time... Cheers John..

2 1

Robocall -- New Kind Of Scammer?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 12 Jan '19

12 Jan '19

I just received an odd phone call which just played a (somewhat muffled and over-compressed) recorded message saying something like “This is Spark NZ informing you that your internet service is going to be terminated. For further information press 1, or press 2 for other queries.” After a few seconds, during which I did nothing, it hung up. I think I may have received a similar call maybe 2-3 weeks ago, because I heard a voice speaking on top of my recorded voice telling the caller to leave a message, but I was too far away at the time to make out what was being said.

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Malware Found Preinstalled On Some Alcatel Smartphones
by Peter Reutemann 11 Jan '19

11 Jan '19

'A weather app that comes preinstalled on Alcatel smartphones contained malware that surreptitiously subscribed device owners to premium phone numbers behind their backs. The app, named "Weather Forecast-World Weather Accurate Radar," was developed by TCL Corporation, a Chinese electronics company that among other things owns the Alcatel, BlackBerry, and Palm brands. The app is one of the default apps that TCL installs on Alcatel smartphones, but it was also made available on the Play Store for all Android users --where it had been downloaded and installed more than ten million times. But at one point last year, both the app included on some Alcatel devices and the one that was available on the Play Store were compromised with malware. How the malware was added to the app is unclear. TCL has not responded to phone calls requesting comment made by ZDNet this week. The app reportedly harvested users' data and sent it to China. It collected geographic locations, email addresses, and IMEI codes, which it sent back to TCL. Upstream, a UK-based mobile security firm, also found that "the malicious code hidden inside the app would also attempt to subscribe users to premium phone numbers that incurred large charges on users' phone bills," reports ZDNet. "All in all, the company says it detected and blocked over 27 million transaction attempts across seven markets, which would have created losses of around $1.5 million to phone owners if they hadn't been blocked." Upstream notes that most of the behavior they've seen originated only from two types of smartphones: Pixi 4 and A3 Max models.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/19/01/10/2117234 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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