- wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

Mozilla Thunderbird Outlines Plans For 2019: Addressing UI Lags, Performance Issues; Improved 3rd-Party Email Integration, Encryption Usability
by Peter Reutemann 02 Jan '19

02 Jan '19

'For years, Mozilla has largely neglected development of Thunderbird, an email client it owns. But the company, which grew its team to eight staff last year, says it plans to address most of the issues that users have complained about and add six more people to Thunderbird staff this year, it said in a blog post. In the blog post Wednesday, the company said: Our hires are already addressing technical debt and doing a fair bit of plumbing when it comes to Thunderbird's codebase. Our new hires will also be addressing UI-slowness and general performance issues across the application. This is an area where I think we will see some of the best improvements in Thunderbird for 2019, as we look into methods for testing and measuring slowness -- and then put our engineers on architecting solutions to these pain points. Beyond that, we will be looking into leveraging new, faster technologies in rewriting parts of Thunderbird as well as working toward a multi-process Thunderbird. [...] For instance, one area of usability that we are planning on addressing in 2019 is integration improvements in various areas. One of those in better Gmail support, as one of the biggest email providers it makes sense to focus some resources on this area. We are looking at addressing Gmail label support and ensuring that other features specific to the Gmail experience translate well into Thunderbird. We are looking at improving notifications in Thunderbird, by better integrating with each operating system's built-in notification system. By working on this feature Thunderbird will feel more "native" on each desktop and will make managing notifications from the app easier. The UX/UI around encryption and settings will get an overhaul in the coming year, whether or not all this work makes it into the next release is an open question â" but as we grow our team this will be a focus. It is our hope to make encrypting Email and ensuring your private communication easier in upcoming releases, we've even hired an engineer who will be focused primarily on security and privacy.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/19/01/02/165204 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 Developers Outline Plan For 2019
by Peter Reutemann 02 Jan '19

02 Jan '19

'The GIMP developers on Wednesday published a blog post in which they look back at the year 2018 (release of GIMP 2.10) and outline the things that they intend to get around this year. From the post: We expect to be shipping 2.10.x updates throughout 2019, starting with the version 2.10.10 currently expected in January/February. This version will feature faster layer groups rendering, smart colorization with the Bucket Fill tool, and various usability improvements. We are also planning the first unstable release of GIMP that will have version 2.99.2, eventually leading up to version 3.0. The prerequisite for releasing that version will be the completion of the space invasion. ZeMarmot project (which can be supported on Patreon or Tipeee) is also planning to focus a bit more on better canvas interactions, as well as animation support improvements, starting from merging existing work. On the GEGL and babl front, we expect to continue working towards better CMYK support and performance.' -- source: https://developers.slashdot.org/story/19/01/02/1655210 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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USB Type-C Authentication Program Launched
by Peter Reutemann 02 Jan '19

02 Jan '19

'With the arrival of USB-C a few years back, plugging into laptops, tablets and smartphones became even easier than before. But there are potential security risks. The USB Type-C Authentication Program launched today aims to address such issues. From a report: The new protocol from the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF) can be used to validate the authenticity of a cable, charger or hardware at the moment of connection, and stop attacks in their tracks. The USB-IF has chosen DigiCert to operate registrations and certificate authority services for the new specification, which makes use of 128-bit cryptographic-based authentication for certificate format, digital signing, hash and random number generation. "USB Type-C Authentication gives OEMs the opportunity to use certificates that enable host systems to confirm the authenticity of a USB device or USB charger, including such product aspects as the descriptors, capabilities and certification status," said DigiCert in a press release. "This protects against potential damage from non-compliant USB chargers and the risks from maliciously embedded hardware or software in devices attempting to exploit a USB connection."' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/19/01/02/2025207 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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wget Command Stores Extended Attributes
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 02 Jan '19

02 Jan '19

Here’s something I didn’t know: the “wget” command saves the URL where it got a downloaded file as an extended attribute of the file. This behaviour isn’t mentioned anywhere in the man page or in the info file, that I can find. Unfortunately, this can lead to a security issue where the URL includes confidential password details. And it appears other apps, like Chrome, do a similar thing. <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/02/wget_bug_fix/>

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Banana Pi 24-Core ARM Server Running Ubuntu Breaks Cover
by Peter Reutemann 27 Dec '18

27 Dec '18

'ARM-based server processors have threatened to take on Intel in the data center for some time but not much has materialized thus far in terms of significant deployments. However, a new breed of low cost ARM server implementations may be in the works with a many-core platform called Banana Pi. The latest Banana Pi device being teased is something very different in the form of a 24-core ARM server that speculation suggests might be sold as a Banana Pi server board or as a finished server product. A video has surfaced that reportedly shows a 24-core ARM Cortex-A53 processor with 32GB of RAM, though the OS only sees 29.4GB of that RAM. The OS is Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS with MATE desktop. Unless the processor used in this device is something unannounced, and that seems unlikely, the chip itself would likely be a SocioNext SC2A11. The same processor is used in the Linaro Developer Box. The demo shows the server fully loaded at 100% CPU utilization building a Linux kernel and reportedly the system also supports NVMe storage as well as TensorFlow workloads for machine learning. Not much else is known about the system at this time but it's an interesting development in the Linux server space to be sure.' -- source: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/18/12/27/0556243 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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Requesting The Data You’ve Left Online
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 26 Dec '18

26 Dec '18

Article from a correspondent for the Otago Daily Times <https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12182555> about what he discovered when he asked Google, Facebook, the NZ Police, the NZSIS and various credit ratings companies what information they had on him. All except one responded with rather sobering amounts of personal detail.

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LibreHunt: The Linux Distro Counsellor
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 23 Dec '18

23 Dec '18

Here’s a site <https://www.librehunt.org/> which purports to suggest a suitable Linux distro for you, based on your answers to questions about your ability, needs etc. The selection is made from a “curated” list of just 44 distros, to simplify things.

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Word For The Week: “Kaomoji”
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 20 Dec '18

20 Dec '18

For those who might previously have gone “(＠_＠)” or “¯\_(ツ)_/¯” when they heard this word, here it is all explained: <http://kaomoji.ru/en/>. So now you can be all “\(^ヮ^)/” instead. Actually I came across that word in this article <https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/12/windows-10-will-make-it-easier-to-%…>, which reports that Windows 10 will make it easier to enter these character sequences.

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Bye bye Mongo, Hello Postgres
by Peter Reutemann 20 Dec '18

20 Dec '18

'In April the Guardian switched off the Mongo DB cluster used to store our content after completing a migration to PostgreSQL on Amazon RDS. This post covers why and how' -- source: https://www.theguardian.com/info/2018/nov/30/bye-bye-mongo-hello-postgres 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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Facebook Does Not “Sell” Your Data, But ...
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 20 Dec '18

20 Dec '18

... they sure as hell have been rather free and easy in sharing it with others <https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20181219/10370941268/facebooks-latest-pri…>. Seems a bunch of companies have had extra-privileged access to user data on Facebook, and they in turn supplied information about those users back to Facebook. This is how the “People You May Know” feature is able to make links like between different patients of the same psychiatrist, and other things equally dodgy ethically, if not downright illegal (or at least they should be). And this may be how Amazon was able to make a (spurious) association between a book reviewer and the book author, and disallow the review on that basis, just because the reviewer had previously followed the author on Facebook.

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kflickr wants http/ssl
by Barry Marchant 19 Dec '18

19 Dec '18

Hi all, When I try to start kflickr from cmd line I get a msg HTTP request to Flickr.com failed. (msg: SSL is required). Am I missing a pkg? or is there another problem? System is x86-64 running Mageia5 TIA Barry

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How Computers Got Shockingly Good At Recognizing Images
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 19 Dec '18

19 Dec '18

Some good background on the origins of all the current hubbub over automated image recognition: <https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/12/how-computers-got-shockingly-good-a…>. A key breakthrough came in 2012, when a team at the University of Toronto combined the “convolutional” neural network concept with a massive deployment of sheer computing power to leave its competitors in the dust in the “ImageNet” image-recognition competition that year. That team are now working at Google. Oh, and the recognition algorithms are now scoring better than many humans in some areas.

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Windows 10 October 2018 Update Is Getting There
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 19 Dec '18

19 Dec '18

Microsoft seems to think its October update is now worth inflicting on “advanced” users <https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/12/windows-10-october-2018-update-now-…>. The more general populace will have to wait a bit longer. I wonder when we’ll see the November update ...

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You’ve Heard Of The Wayback Machine, Now Meet Archive Team
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 18 Dec '18

18 Dec '18

You probably already know about the Wayback machine <https://archive.org/>. You might think of them as the “respectable” side of trying to save snapshots of old websites: they respect robots.txt and takedown demands. Well, now meet the, um, more “wild and woolly” side with the same mission: Archive Team <https://archiveteam.org/>. They describe themselves as ... a loose collective of rogue archivists, programmers, writers and loudmouths dedicated to saving our digital heritage. Since 2009 this variant force of nature has caught wind of shutdowns, shutoffs, mergers, and plain old deletions - and done our best to save the history before it's lost forever. Along the way, we've gotten attention, resistance, press and discussion, but most importantly, we've gotten the message out: IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE THIS WAY. I just heard about them because they were trying to save all the X-rated blogs on tumblr.com before these disappeared, on orders of new owner Verizon. The company tried to block them from achieving this mission, but they found a way around the block (NSFW language) <https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20181216/22420341242/as-final-fuck-you-to…>.

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MIPS Goes Open Source
by Peter Reutemann 18 Dec '18

18 Dec '18

'Junko Yoshida, writing for EETimes: Without question, 2018 was the year RISC-V genuinely began to build momentum among chip architects hungry for open-source instruction sets. That was then. By 2019, RISC-V won't be the only game in town. Wave Computing (Campbell, Calif.) announced Monday (Dec. 17) that it is putting MIPS on open source, with MIPS Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) and MIPS' latest core R6 available in the first quarter of 2019. Art Swift, hired by Wave this month as president of its MIPS licensing business, described the move as critical to accelerate the adoption of MIPS in an ecosystem. Going open source is "a big plan" that Wave CEO Derek Meyer, a MIPS veteran, has been quietly fostering since Wave acquired MIPS Technologies in June, explained Swift. Swift himself is a MIPS alumnus who worked at the company as a vice president of marketing and business development for four years. Wave, which styles itself as a tech startup poised to bring "AI and deep learning from the datacenter to the edge," sees MIPS as a key to advancing Wave's AI into a host of uses and applications. Included in MIPS instruction sets are extensions such as SIMD (single instruction, multiple data) and DSP. Swift promised that MIPS will bring to the open-source community "commercial-ready" instruction sets with "industrial-strength" architecture. "Chip designers will have opportunities to design their own cores based on proven and well tested instruction sets for any purposes," said Swift.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/18/12/17/1954247 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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Red Hat Enterprise Linux Comes To Windows 10 in the Form of WLinux Enterprise
by Peter Reutemann 18 Dec '18

18 Dec '18

'Mark Wilson writes: Earlier in the year open-source software startup Whitewater Foundry brought WLinux to the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). Not content with creating the first native Linux distribution for WSL, the company has now gone a step further, targeting enterprise users with WLinux Enterprise. Whitewater Foundry says that WLinux Enterprise is the first product to support the industry-standard Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Windows Sub' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/18/12/17/2041255 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 isn’t the company that we should have handed the Web over to
by Peter Reutemann 17 Dec '18

17 Dec '18

'With Microsoft's decision to end development of its own Web rendering engine and switch to Chromium, control over the Web has functionally been ceded to Google. That's a worrying turn of events, given the company's past behavior. Chrome itself has about 72 percent of the desktop-browser market share. Edge has about 4 percent. Opera, based on Chromium, has another 2 percent. The abandoned, no-longer-updated Internet Explorer has 5 percent, and Safari—only available on macOS—about 5 percent. When Microsoft's transition is complete, we're looking at a world where Chrome and Chrome-derivatives take about 80 percent of the market, with only Firefox, at 9 percent, actively maintained and available cross-platform. The mobile story has stronger representation from Safari, thanks to the iPhone, but overall tells a similar story. Chrome has 53 percent directly, plus another 6 percent from Samsung Internet, another 5 percent from Opera, and another 2 percent from Android browser. Safari has about 22 percent, with the Chinese UC Browser sitting at about 9 percent. That's two-thirds of the mobile market going to Chrome and Chrome derivatives. In terms of raw percentages, Google won't have quite as big a lock on the browser space as Microsoft did with Internet Explorer—Internet Explorer 6 peaked at around 80 percent, and all versions of Internet Explorer together may have reached as high as 95 percent. But Google's reach is, in practice, much greater: not only is the Web a substantially more important place today than it was in the early 2000s, but also there's a whole new mobile Web that operates in addition to the desktop Web.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/12/the-web-now-belongs-to-google-and-t… 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 Alternative Software Licenses Represent Open Source's 'Midlife Crisis'?
by Peter Reutemann 16 Dec '18

16 Dec '18

'"it is clear to me that open source -- now several decades old and fully adult -- is going through its own midlife crisis," writes Joyent CTO Bryan Cantrill. [O]pen source business models are really tough, selling software-as-a-service is one of the most natural of them, the cloud service providers are really good at it -- and their commercial appetites seem boundless. And, like a new cherry red two-seater sports car next to a minivan in a suburban driveway, some open source companies are dealing with this crisis exceptionally poorly: they are trying to restrict the way that their open source software can be used. These companies want it both ways: they want the advantages of open source -- the community, the positivity, the energy, the adoption, the downloads -- but they also want to enjoy the fruits of proprietary software companies in software lock-in and its concomitant monopolistic rents. If this were entirely transparent (that is, if some bits were merely being made explicitly proprietary), it would be fine: we could accept these companies as essentially proprietary software companies, albeit with an open source loss-leader. But instead, these companies are trying to license their way into this self-contradictory world: continuing to claim to be entirely open source, but perverting the license under which portions of that source are available. Most gallingly, they are doing this by hijacking open source nomenclature. Of these, the laughably named commons clause is the worst offender (it is plainly designed to be confused with the purely virtuous creative commons), but others...are little better... "[T]heir business model isn't their community's problem, and they should please stop trying to make it one," Cantrill writes, adding letter that "As we collectively internalize that open source is not a business model on its own, we will likely see fewer VC-funded open source companies (though I'm honestly not sure that that's a bad thing)..." He also points out that "Even though the VC that led the last round wants to puke into a trashcan whenever they hear it, business models like 'support', 'services' and 'training' are entirely viable!" Jay Kreps, Co-founder of @confluentinc, has posted a rebuttal on Medium. "How do you describe a license that lets you run, modify, fork, and redistribute the code and do virtually anything other than offer a competing SaaS offering of the product? I think Bryan's sentiment may be that it should be called the Evil Proprietary Corruption of Open Source License or something like that, but, well, we disagree."' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/18/12/15/2221232 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 Last Independent Mobile OS
by Peter Reutemann 16 Dec '18

16 Dec '18

'The year was 2010 and the future of mobile computing was looking bright. The iPhone was barely three years old, Google's Android had yet to swallow the smartphone market whole, and half a dozen alternative mobile operating systems -- many of which were devoutly open source -- were preparing for launch. Eight years on, you probably haven't even heard of most of these alternative mobile operating systems, much less use them. Today, Android and iOS dominate the global smartphone market and account for 99.9 percent of mobile operating systems. Even Microsoft and Blackberry, longtime players in the mobile space with massive revenue streams, have all but left the space. Then there's Jolla, the small Finnish tech company behind Sailfish OS, which it bills as the "last independent alternative mobile operating system." Jolla has had to walk itself back from the edge of destruction several times over the course of its seven year existence, and each time it has emerged battered, but more determined than ever to carve out a spot in the world for a truly independent, open source mobile operating system. Jolla's Sailfish OS rose from the ashes of Nokia and Intel's ill-fated collaboration, MeeGo. The MeeGo project launched in 2010 in an attempt to merge Intel's Linux-based Moblin OS and Nokia's Maemo software platform into a single open-source mobile operating system that could take on Google. By 2011, Android had already surpassed Nokia in the smartphone market, a fact that wasn't lost on Nokia's CEO Stephen Elop, who in a memo described the company as standing on a "burning platform." Nokia only ever released one phone running MeeGo: the Nokia N9, which ended up being well received despite its limited release. But it was too little, too late. By 2011, Nokia was bleeding talent and it was clear that MeeGo wasn't going to keep the company competitive in the rapidly changing smartphone market. In a last-ditch effort, Nokia struck a partnership with Microsoft to provide the hardware for its next generation of Windows Phones, abandoning MeeGo entirely. The same couldn't be said for those developers who had worked on MeeGo and, before that, an open source mobile OS called Mer, based on Intel's Maemo system. In October 2011, three developers that had worked on Mer sent a message on a mailing list calling for the creation of a "MeeGo 2.0." At the same time, developer Sami Pienimaki and two others left Nokia to found their own company, which would use this new version of MeeGo as the basis for an open source mobile OS. And thus, Sailfish was born. In a cheeky homage to the "burning platform" memo, Pienimaki and his fellow defectors decided to name their company Jolla, a Finnish word connoting a small boat or life raft. Jolla has since turned to Russia and China, both of which were hungry for a secure alternative to Google-based systems. In late 2016, Sailfish OS achieved domestic certification in Russia for government and corporate us. Around the same time, Sailfish was also making moves in China. In early 2017, the Sailfish China Consortium gained the exclusive rights and license to develop a Chinese OS based on Sailfish.' -- source: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/18/12/16/0758215 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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Tesla Model 3 Modded To Run Ubuntu
by Peter Reutemann 16 Dec '18

16 Dec '18

'CleanTechnica is reporting that someone hacked the infotainment system of a Tesla Model 3 and got root access and installed Linux distribution Ubuntu. Redditor trsohmers is able to show an Ubuntu command shell running alongside the Tesla OS. Since Tesla supports a browser that allows you to visit any site, could this be leveraged into remote hacks? It could also mean that if Tesla sells a long-range version of the Model 3, but limits it via software, people might try to remove the block. One could potentially get a 15-day trial of full self-driving for free and extend that 15-day window forever. At least he had some guts messing with $50,000 hardware that phones home all the time. Will Tesla brick his car to attempt to disprove the security issue?' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/18/12/15/0355250 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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Evelyn Berezin Has Died
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 15 Dec '18

15 Dec '18

Among her many achievements: While IBM had been producing word processors of a sort for a few years when Berezin developed hers in 1968, she was the first to use semiconductor chips to make a true computing system for this purpose. IBM's solution used a typewriter and a magnetic tape drive and was much less efficient to use. <https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/12/evelyn-berezin-creator-of-the-first…>

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Automatically Generating Fake Photos
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 15 Dec '18

15 Dec '18

Look at the photo grid about halfway down this article <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/12/14/ai_created_photos/>: as I understand it, the main facial features are taken from the photos down the leftmost column; these are then resynthesized into a new orientation, expression and other embellishments (including hair colour/style, gender and apparent age!) to match the photos across the topmost row. Or something like that. Apparently, Nvidia is planning to publish its source code. Kids, you may not be able to afford the hardware to try this at home ...

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Windows Server 2019 Officially Supports OpenSSH For the First Time
by Peter Reutemann 13 Dec '18

13 Dec '18

'Microsoft said in 2015 that it would build OpenSSH, a set of utilities that allow clients and servers to connect securely, into Windows, while also making contributions to its development. Neowin: Since then, the company has delivered on that promise in recent releases of Windows 10, being introduced as a feature-on-demand in version 1803. However, Windows Server hadn't received the feature until now, at least not in an officially supported way -- Windows Server version 1709 included it as a pre-release feature. But that's finally changed, as Microsoft this week revealed that Windows Server 2019, which was made available (again) in November, includes OpenSSH as a supported feature.' -- source: https://slashdot.org/story/18/12/13/1947257 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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In a Test, 3D Model of a Head Was Able To Fool Facial Recognition System of Several Popular Android Smartphones
by Peter Reutemann 13 Dec '18

13 Dec '18

'Forbes magazine tested four of the most popular handsets running Google's operating systems and Apple's iPhone to see how easy it'd be to break into them with a 3D-printed head. All of the Android handsets opened with the fake. Apple's phone, however, was impenetrable. From the report: For our tests, we used my own real-life head to register for facial recognition across five phones. An iPhone X and four Android devices: an LG G7 Linq, a Samsung S9, a Samsung Note 8 and a OnePlus 6. I then held up my fake head to the devices to see if the device would unlock. For all four Android phones, the spoof face was able to open the phone, though with differing degrees of ease. The iPhone X was the only one to never be fooled. There were some disparities between the Android devices' security against the hack. For instance, when first turning on a brand new G7 Linq, LG actually warns the user against turning facial recognition on at all. No surprise then that, on initial testing, the 3D-printed head opened it straightaway. [...] The OnePlus 6 came with neither the warnings of the other Android phones nor the choice of slower but more secure recognition.' -- source: https://apple.slashdot.org/story/18/12/13/1438218 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 Kernel Developers Discuss Dropping x32 Support
by Peter Reutemann 12 Dec '18

12 Dec '18

'It was just several years ago that the open-source ecosystem began supporting the x32 ABI, but already kernel developers are talking of potentially deprecating the support and for it to be ultimately removed.. [...] While the x32 support was plumbed through the Linux landscape, it really hasn't been used much. Kernel developers are now discussing the future of the x32 ABI due to the maintenance cost involved in still supporting this code but with minimal users. Linus Torvalds is in favor of sunsetting x32 and many other upstream contributors in favor of seeing it deprecated and removed.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/18/12/12/1336210 More information on x32 ABI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X32_ABI 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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Getting Shown Pregnancy Ads After Child Was Stillborn
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 12 Dec '18

12 Dec '18

An op-ed on the pitfalls of algorithmically-targeted advertising, originally from the Washington Post <https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=121760…>: Please, Tech Companies, I implore you: If your algorithms are smart enough to realize that I was pregnant, or that I've given birth, then surely they can be smart enough to realize that my baby died, and advertise to me accordingly - or maybe, just maybe, not at all. Unfortunately, the old adage “if you’re not paying for the product, then you are the product” applies yet again. Notwithstanding a personal reply from a high-up Facebook exec at the end of the above article, don’t expect these algorithms to be “smart enough” to do anything more than maximize advertising revenue. Anything more ends up counting as “unnecessary expenditure”.

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FreeBSD 12 Released
by Peter Reutemann 12 Dec '18

12 Dec '18

'The 12th version of the FreeBSD has been released, bringing support for updated hardware. Some of the highlights include: OpenSSL has been updated to version 1.1.1a (LTS). Unbound has been updated to version 1.8.1, and DANE-TA has been enabled by default. OpenSSH has been updated to version 7.8p1. Additonal capsicum(4) support has been added to sshd(8). Clang, LLVM, LLD, LLDB, compiler-rt and libc++ has been updated to version 6.0.1. The vt(4) Terminus BSD Console font has been updated to version 4.46. The bsdinstall(8) utility now supports UEFI+GELI as an installation option. The VIMAGE kernel configuration option has been enabled by default. The NUMA option has been enabled by default in the amd64 GENERIC and MINIMAL kernel configurations. The netdump(4) driver has been added, providing a facility through which kernel crash dumps can be transmitted to a remote host after a system panic. The vt(4) driver has been updated with performance improvements, drawing text at rates ranging from 2- to 6-times faster. Various improvements to graphics support for current generation hardware. Support for capsicum(4) has been enabled on armv6 and armv7 by default. The UFS/FFS filesystem has been updated to consolidate TRIM/BIO_DELETE commands, reducing read/write requests due to fewer TRIM messages being sent simultaneously. The NFS version 4.1 server has been updated to include pNFS server support. The pf(4) packet filter is now usable within a jail(8) using vnet(9). The bhyve(8) utility has been updated to add NVMe device emulation. The bhyve(8) utility is now able to be run within a jail(8). Various Lua loader(8) improvements. KDE has been updated to version 5.12.' -- source: https://bsd.slashdot.org/story/18/12/12/1510202 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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Could NZ Get Its Own “Assistance and Access” Law?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 11 Dec '18

11 Dec '18

The ever-perceptive Juha Saarinen gives his commentary <https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=121750…> on the law recently passed in Australia to compel access to decrypted forms of encrypted communications. Thanks to the new law requiring them to quietly add that backdoor that mustn't be called a backdoor into their code, Aussie developers can no longer be trusted by their international peers. You can't say no when government agencies issue a notice, saying absolutely do not tell your employer about it or you'll cop a hefty punishment. But the law is not supposed to achieve this by introducing “systemic weaknesses” into the encryption. Can you use that as a defence against having to weaken the encryption? Not a chance. The not-so-fine irony is that the Aussie Government is doing the same thing it alleges the Chinese spies would force Huawei to do, and which was considered dangerous enough to ban the telco equipment vendor from national communications networks. This gets pointed out repeatedly about similar discussions in the US, UK etc. But there seems to be a mentality among politicians, law enforcement, spies etc that “we’re the good guys, they’re the bad guys, therefore what we do cannot be classed in the same league as what they do”. Forgetting that what makes us good is that we don’t act like bad guys. And the kicker: The risk now is that other Five-Eyes countries, including New Zealand, follow Australia into making the same monumental mistake. What are the odds?

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New Firefox Suggests Ways To Get More Out of the Web
by Peter Reutemann 11 Dec '18

11 Dec '18

'Starting Tuesday, Firefox will nudge you to try out options designed to make the web more interesting, more useful or more productive. From a report: Mozilla's new Firefox 64 keeps an eye on what you're up to and prompts you to try extensions and features that could help you with that activity, the browser maker said. For example, if you open the same tab lots of times, it could suggest you pin it to your tab strip for easier future access. Other suggestions include installing the Facebook Container extension to curtail the social network's snooping, a Google Translate extension to tap into Google's service, and the Enhancer for YouTube extension to do things like block ads and control playback on Google's video site. The feature could help you customize Firefox more to your liking -- something that could help you stick with the browser in the face of Google Chrome's dominance. And that, in turn, could help Mozilla pursue its push toward a privacy-respecting web that's not just effectively controlled by Chrome.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/18/12/11/1756217 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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Super Micro Says Review Found No Malicious Chips in Motherboards
by Peter Reutemann 11 Dec '18

11 Dec '18

'Computer hardware maker Super Micro Computer told customers on Tuesday that an outside investigations firm had found no evidence of any malicious hardware in its current or older-model motherboards. >From a report: In a letter to customers, the San Jose, California, company said it was not surprised by the result of the review it commissioned in October after a Bloomberg article reported that spies for the Chinese government had tainted Super Micro equipment to eavesdrop on its clients.' -- source: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/18/12/11/1410200 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 Trojan Steals Money From PayPal Accounts Even With 2FA On
by Peter Reutemann 11 Dec '18

11 Dec '18

'ESET researchers have discovered a new Android Trojan using a novel Accessibility-abusing technique that targets the official PayPal app, and is capable of bypassing PayPal's two-factor authentication. A report elaborates: At the time of writing, the malware is masquerading as a battery optimization tool, and is distributed via third-party app stores. After being launched, the malicious app terminates without offering any functionality and hides its icon. This video, courtesy of ESET, demonstrates the process in practice.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/18/12/11/1722251 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 Fixes Notepad
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 11 Dec '18

11 Dec '18

Windows Notepad has never been able to handle any newline convention other than the old DOS/Windows/CP/M one (CR-LF). Now, after so many decades, Microsoft has finally decided to give it “universal newline” capability, so it can handle lines ending in LF-only (Unix/Linux) and CR-only (old MacOS) <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/05/08/windows_notepad_unix_macos_line_end…>. Gee, I wonder how many lines of code that took...

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No, I Didn’t Know That
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 11 Dec '18

11 Dec '18

Would you believe, malware can make money by generating fake clicks on ads? Would you further believe, that ad networks pay more for clicks from Apple devices than from Android? Can you guess what happens next? <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/12/10/android_ios_clickfraud/>

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Presentations using the Waikato Uni video projector - Console windows font size.
by Ian Stewart 11 Dec '18

11 Dec '18

Hi, This is mostly a memo to myself as I have twice been caught out with Linux consoles being displayed with too small a font on the Uni video projector. However the following may also be useful to other presenters in the future. Most wlug presentations are done with a Linux laptop or PC running in a GUI Environment that is connected to the video projector. If you open a GUI console terminal window or web-browser window and the video projector display is difficult to read, then you can increase the size with the keystroke sequence Control + Shift + Plus, or decrease the size with Control + Minus. Linux also has 6 x console windows available. The keystroke sequence Ctrl + Alt + F1 opens tty1 console, through to Ctrl + Alt + F6 opening tty6 console. Note that Ctrl + Alt + F7 returns you to the laptops GUI environment. As your laptop/pc is likely to auto-size to the resolution of the video projector, then I think your laptop will opt to displaying the 1080p resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. By default your Linux consoles are likely to be configured to display a "Fixed" font of "8x16". When you display your console window with the video projector then one page of the display will be about 60 lines of text with 200 characters across the page. This is almost impossible to read on the projector screen. One way to overcome this problem this is to edit... /etc/default/console-setup You will see... FONTFACE="Fixed" FONTSIZE="8x16" At the bottom of the file add something like... # For Waikato University Video Projector # Choices of Fontsize with Terminus font: # 6x12, 8x14, 8x16, 10x20, 11x22, 12x24, 14x28, 16x32 FONTFACE="Terminus" FONTSIZE="14x28" ...save the changes to the console-setup file and execute... $ setupcon The console displayed should now be about 35 rows by 80 character cells, and should allow everyone to read what is displayed. cheers, Ian. PS: Another approach to making these changes is... $ dpkg-reconfigure console-setup ...this will step through 4 x graphical input screens. From these screens select "Terminus" as the Font and the "14x28" as the Font size. To restore to the original settings run dpkg-reconfigure console-setup again and select "Fixed" and "8x16".

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Malicious Sites Abuse 11-Year-Old Firefox Bug That Mozilla Failed To Fix
by Peter Reutemann 11 Dec '18

11 Dec '18

'Malware authors, ad farmers, and scammers are abusing a Firefox bug to trap users on malicious sites. From a report: This wouldn't be a big deal, as the web is fraught with this kind of malicious sites, but these websites aren't abusing some new never-before-seen trick, but a Firefox bug that Mozilla engineers appear to have failed to fix in the 11 years ever since it was first reported back in April 2007. The bug narrows down to a malicious website embedding an iframe inside their source code. The iframe makes an HTTP authentication request on another domain. [...] For the past few years, malware authors, ad farmers, and scammers have been abusing this bug to lure users on sites where they show all sorts of nasties, such as tech support scams, ad farms that reload the page with new ads in a loop, pages that push users to buy fake gift cards, or sites that offer malware-laced software updates. Whenever users try to leave, the owners of these shady sites trigger the authentification modal in a loop.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/18/12/10/0220258 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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ESET Discovers 21 New Linux Malware Families
by Peter Reutemann 11 Dec '18

11 Dec '18

'In a report published last week by cyber-security firm ESET, the company detailed 21 "new" Linux malware families. All operate in the same manner, as trojanized versions of the OpenSSH client. From a report: They are developed as second-stage tools to be deployed in more complex "botnet" schemes. Attackers would compromise a Linux system, usually a server, and then replace the legitimate OpenSSH installation with one of the trojanized versions.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/18/12/10/1538203 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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Faxes To Be Banned At The NHS
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 10 Dec '18

10 Dec '18

The UK’s National Health Service is being forced to phase out its heavy reliance on fax machines <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/12/10/hancock_fax_ban_nhs/> and resort to more, um, “digital” alternatives like e-mail instead: However, it's worth noting that just last week, up to 1.2 million staffers were locked out of their NHSmail accounts after Accenture reportedly botched a data centre upgrade. [Helen Stokes-Lampard, chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners] raised similar concerns about the resilience of the IT systems the NHS is racing to introduce. "What's shocking is how often digital innovations fall over," she said. "It doesn't mean we shouldn’t do it, but what it does mean is we have to be realistic about with the time scales for this."

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National Oracle System Is A Write-Off
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 10 Dec '18

10 Dec '18

Looks like the nationwide attempt to streamline and update the IT systems of all the DHBs is now going to be written off <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/12/10/national_oracle_solution_write_dow…>. It hasn’t officially been abandoned, mind you, but because it’s been “on hold” for so long, the DHBs are now obliged to start recording “impairments” in their accounts over their investment in the system. By the way, the Waikato DHB was one of the four that managed a rollout of the system so far. Not sure whether that stays in place or gets rolled back...

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How to Auto Backup Files to USB Media When Connected
by Peter Reutemann 10 Dec '18

10 Dec '18

'A backup is the last defense against data loss, offering a means to restore original data. You can use either a removable media such as an external hard drive or USB flash disk or a shared network folder, or a remote host to back up your data. It’s very easy (and equally essential) to automatically backup your important files without you having to remember to do so. In this article, we will learn how to auto backup data to a removable media after connecting it to your Linux machine. We will test with an external disk. This is a basic guide to get you started with using udev for real-life solutions.' -- source: https://www.tecmint.com/auto-backup-files-to-usb-media-in-linux/ 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.org's DNS Got Hijacked
by Peter Reutemann 09 Dec '18

09 Dec '18

'Linux.org reports: Wednesday afternoon around 5pm EST someone was able to get into the registrar account for our domain and point DNS to another server -- as well as lock us out from changing it. They pointed the domain name to a pretty rude page for most of the evening until Cloudflare stepped in and blocked the domain for us. After a lot of back and forth with our registrar, we were able to get things back under our control. I'd like to point out that our server environment was not touched so there are no worries about your data. We've gone over security protocols and are tightening things up that may have slipped through in the past. Thanks for your support! Linux.org apparently pointed to a page exclaiming "G3T 0WNED L1NUX N3RDZ", which also included a NSFW picture, some abusive language, a shout-out to recently-deceased programmer Terry Davis, and a link to an article about Linus Torvalds' controversial apology for "his hostile behavior towards others in the community." Long-time Slashdot reader Grady Martin says he also saw the page pointing to "presumably doxed info" about the creator of Linux's code of conduct, a fact confirmed by a report in the Register. "As for how it was hacked, [Linux.org owner Mike] McLagan blames the public Whois displaying his partner's email address -- presumably the hacker worked their way into the Yahoo email account listed as the admin of the site and from there requested a password change in her Network Solutions account to gain access to the domain."' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/18/12/08/0355227 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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50 Years Since “The Mother Of All Demos”
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 08 Dec '18

08 Dec '18

On the 9th of December 1968, Doug Engelbart did a demo of NLS, his system for real-time interactive collaboration at a distance. This was also the first known use of a computer mouse. <https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20181207/15484041180/been-50-years-take-s…>

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Running Linux Mint 19.1
by tom butz 07 Dec '18

07 Dec '18

Linux Mint 19.1 works well using my laptop (Toshiba Z930 6 GB RAM) and a USB3 connection to a 500G USB3-harddisk. I first tried a fast 10-speed 64GB SD-card, but that actually seemed to be slower - and the SD-card would have worn out in the end. For some reason Mint has got a swapFILE in the root directory - pretty hard on the SD-card. I haven't got USB3.1 (yet). 19.1 supports Bluetooth in both directions: under Mint 19, I couldn't send from Mint to my Android phone (Android 7.1) 19.1 also features snapshots. I didn't have to test them as I prefer to run Mint off my laptop (no power-cuts there). Occasionally I run it off my MacMini (8 GB of RAM, OS 10.7.5). The MacOS is too old for many things, and to avoid having to buy new Mac gear, I 'upgraded' by running Mint on it. Tom Butz.

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Report: Microsoft is scrapping Edge, switching to just another Chrome clone
by Peter Reutemann 06 Dec '18

06 Dec '18

'Windows Central reports that Microsoft is planning to replace its Edge browser, which uses Microsoft's own EdgeHTML rendering engine and Chakra JavaScript engine, with a new browser built on Chromium, the open source counterpart to Google's Chrome. The new browser has the codename Anaheim. The report is short on details. The easiest thing for Microsoft to do would be to use Chromium's code wholesale—the Blink rendering engine, the V8 JavaScript engine, and the Chrome user interface with the Google Account parts omitted—to produce something that looks, works, and feels almost identical to Chrome. Alternatively, Redmond could use Blink and V8 but wrap them in Edge's user interface (or some derivative thereof), to retain its own appearance. It might even be possible to do something weird, such as use Blink with the Chakra JavaScript engine. We'll have to wait and see.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/12/report-microsoft-is-scrapping-edge-… 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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White House Cybersecurity Advisor Gets Hacked
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 05 Dec '18

05 Dec '18

Rudy Giuliani, the White House cybersecurity advisor, has posted a tweet <https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12172128> <https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20181205/07205841164/rudy-giulianis-paran…> where he meant to say “... just as the President left for G-20. In July...” Unfortunately he left out the space in “G-20. In”, turning it into “G-20.In”, which Twitter automatically formatted as a link. Someone noticed that the domain name in question was available, and promptly snapped it up and used it to post an anti-Trump message. This has made Mr Giuliani somewhat angry. He has tried to blame Twitter for the slipup, claiming the social media service “allowed someone to invade my text with a disgusting anti-President message”, as though he was not the one who created the link in the first place. Remember, this man has the job of advising the entire executive arm of the US government on keeping people’s computer usage secure. I wonder if he’s figured out how to delete a tweet yet?

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Google Personalizes Search Results Even When You're Logged Out, a DuckDuckGo Study Finds
by Peter Reutemann 05 Dec '18

05 Dec '18

'According to a new study conducted by Google competitor DuckDuckGo, it does not seem possible to avoid personalization when using Google search, even by logging out of your Google account and using the private browsing "incognito" mode. From a report: DuckDuckGo conducted the study in June of this year, at the height of the US midterm election season. It did so with the ostensible goal of confirming whether Google's search results exacerbate ideological bubbles by feeding you only information you've signaled you want to consume via past behavior and the data collected about you. It's not clear whether that question can be reliably answered with these findings, and it's also obvious DuckDuckGo is a biased source with something to gain by pointing out how flawed Google's approach may be. But the study's findings are nonetheless interesting because they highlight just how much variance there are in Google search results, even when controlling for factors like location.' -- source: https://search.slashdot.org/story/18/12/04/1610237 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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Kubernetes' First Major Security Hole Discovered
by Peter Reutemann 05 Dec '18

05 Dec '18

'Kubernetes has become the most popular cloud container orchestration system by far, so it was only a matter of time until its first major security hole was discovered. And the bug, CVE-2018-1002105, aka the Kubernetes privilege escalation flaw, is a doozy. It's a CVSS 9.8 critical security hole. From a report: With a specially crafted network request, any user can establish a connection through the Kubernetes application programming interface (API) server to a backend server. Once established, an attacker can send arbitrary requests over the network connection directly to that backend. Adding insult to injury, these requests are authenticated with the Kubernetes API server's Transport Layer Security (TLS) credentials. Can you say root? I knew you could. Worse still, "In default configurations, all users (authenticated and unauthenticated) are allowed to perform discovery API calls that allow this escalation." So, yes, anyone who knows about this hole can take command of your Kubernetes cluster.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/18/12/04/1958222 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 breach Quora.com and steal password data for 100 million users
by Peter Reutemann 04 Dec '18

04 Dec '18

'Brace yourself for yet another massive data breach. Quora.com, a site where people ask and answer questions on a range of topics, said hackers breached its computer network and accessed a variety of potentially sensitive personal data for about 100 million users. Compromised information includes cryptographically protected passwords, full names, email addresses, data imported from linked networks, and a variety of non-public content and actions, including direct messages, answer requests, and downvotes. The breached data also included public content and actions, such as questions, answers, comments, and upvotes. In a post published late Monday afternoon, Quora officials said they discovered the unauthorized access on Friday. They have since hired a digital forensics and security firm to investigate and have also reported the breach to law enforcement officials.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/12/quora-says-hackers-s… 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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Blockchain Study Finds 0% Success Rate and Vendors Don't Call Back When Asked For Evidence
by Peter Reutemann 04 Dec '18

04 Dec '18

'Though Blockchain has been touted as the answer to everything, a study of 43 solutions advanced in the international development sector has found exactly no evidence of success. From a report: Three practitioners including erstwhile blockchain enthusiast John Burg, a Fellow at the US Agency for International Development (USAID), looked at instances of the distributed crypto ledger being used in a wide range of situations by NGOs, contractors and agencies. But they drew a complete blank. "We found a proliferation of press releases, white papers, and persuasively written articles," Burg et al wrote. "However, we found no documentation or evidence of the results blockchain was purported to have achieved in these claims. We also did not find lessons learned or practical insights, as are available for other technologies in development." Blockchain vendors were keen to puff the merits of the technology, but when the three asked for proof of success in the field, it all went very quiet. "We fared no better when we reached out directly to several blockchain firms, via email, phone, and in person. Not one was willing to share data on program results, MERL [monitoring, evaluation, research and learning] processes, or adaptive management for potential scale-up. Despite all the hype about how blockchain will bring unheralded transparency to processes and operations in low-trust environments, the industry is itself opaque." Burg was an enthusiastic advocate for blockchain until recently -- as he explained in this Medium post.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/18/12/03/2058244 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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Twitter User Hacks 50, 000 Printers To Tell People To Subscribe To a YouTube Channel
by Peter Reutemann 03 Dec '18

03 Dec '18

'A Twitter user using the pseudonym of @TheHackerGiraffe has hacked over 50,000 printers to print out flyers telling people to subscribe to PewDiePie's YouTube channel. The message the printers received was a simple one. It urged people to subscribe to PewDiePie's YouTube channel in order for PewDiePie -- a famous YouTuber from Sweden, real name Felix Kjellberg -- to keep the crown of most subscribed to YouTube channel. If this sounds ...odd... it's because over the past month, an Indian record label called T-Series has caught up and surpassed PewDiePie, once considered untouchable in terms of YouTube followers. The Swedish Youtube star made a comeback after his fans banded together in various social media campaigns, but T-Series is catching up with PewDiePie again.' -- source: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/18/12/02/2241230 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 Linux Taking Over The World?
by Peter Reutemann 02 Dec '18

02 Dec '18

'"2019 just might be the Year of Linux -- the year in which Linux is fully recognized as the powerhouse it has become," writes Network World's "Unix dweeb." The fact is that most people today are using Linux without ever knowing it -- whether on their phones, online when using Google, Facebook, Twitter, GPS devices, and maybe even in their cars, or when using cloud storage for personal or business use. While the presence of Linux on all of these systems may go largely unnoticed by consumers, the role that Linux plays in this market is a sign of how critical it has become. Most IoT and embedded devices -- those small, limited functionality devices that require good security and a small footprint and fill so many niches in our technology-driven lives -- run some variety of Linux, and this isn't likely to change. Instead, we'll just be seeing more devices and a continued reliance on open source to drive them. According to the Cloud Industry Forum, for the first time, businesses are spending more on cloud than on internal infrastructure. The cloud is taking over the role that data centers used to play, and it's largely Linux that's making the transition so advantageous. Even on Microsoft's Azure, the most popular operating system is Linux. In its first Voice of the Enterprise survey, 451 Research predicted that 60 percent of nearly 1,000 IT leaders surveyed plan to run the majority of their IT off premises by 2019. That equates to a lot of IT efforts relying on Linux. Gartner states that 80 percent of internally developed software is now either cloud-enabled or cloud-native. The article also cites Linux's use in AI, data lakes, and in the Sierra supercomputer that monitors America's nuclear stockpile, concluding that "In its domination of IoT, cloud technology, supercomputing and AI, Linux is heading into 2019 with a lot of momentum." And there's even a long list of upcoming Linux conferences...' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/18/12/01/2018223 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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