- wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

Alphabet's Intra App Encrypts DNS Queries To Help Users Bypass Online Censorship
by Peter Reutemann 03 Oct '18

03 Oct '18

'Catalin Cimpanu, writing for ZDNet: Jigsaw, a technology incubator created by Google and operated as a subsidiary under the Alphabet brand, has released today an Android app named Intra that can encrypt DNS queries as a protection against DNS manipulation at the ISP (internet service provider) level. DNS manipulation is one of the most common forms of online censorship used by oppressive regimes or unscrupulous ISPs, used to block access to news sites, information portals, social media platforms, undesirable software, and more. Intra protects against DNS manipulation by keeping DNS traffic hidden from third-parties with state-level surveillance capabilities, such as internet service providers in countries with autocratic regimes. Reports suggest that Alphabet tested the app with a few dozen political activists in Venezuela before the global roll-out.' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/18/10/03/2042219 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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ungoogled-chromium
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 03 Oct '18

03 Oct '18

Even though the Chromium browser is Open Source, it still does a whole lot of communication with Google’s servers, when it’s built and when it runs. This project <https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium> tries to strip out all of that, while preserving the user-visible behaviour as much as possible.

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Aussie Law >> Maths
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 02 Oct '18

02 Oct '18

"The laws of Australia prevail in Australia, I can assure you of that," [Malcolm Turnbull] said on Friday. "The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia." <https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170714/10385237789/aussie-prime-ministe…>

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Who Needs Special Hardware Random Number Generators?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 02 Oct '18

02 Oct '18

The weak point in any encryption system has long been: how random are your random numbers? Providing special hardware for generating random numbers, special CPU instructions etc has always been open to the objection that their randomness could be subverted -- whether through some minor stupid mistake in implementation, or deliberately by certain powerful agencies -- and you would never know. Now, a new research paper <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/10/01/hardware_random_numbers/> proposes that normal CPU operation itself can be a source of random numbers. And the way these are obtained would in fact be very hard to subvert, since it is based on detecting subtle timing variations in the operations of various circuits. In other words, it is obtaining randomness from hardware that is not designed to be working randomly at all. And this should -- hopefully -- make the randomness very difficult to compromise.

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NZ Customs Can Now Demand You Unlock Your Phone
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 01 Oct '18

01 Oct '18

You can now face a $5,000 fine for not unlocking your phone if ordered to do so, when coming into NZ <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/10/01/nz_border_customs/>. Justice Minister Andrew Little says: “The bill provides for that power of search and examination, but in order to exercise that power, a customs officer, first of all, has to be satisfied, or at least to have a reasonable suspicion, that a person in possession of such a device—it would be a cellphone or a laptop or anything else that might be described as an 'e-device'—has been involved in criminal offending.” Howver, ... the Council of Civil Liberties criticised the “reasonable cause” protection as inadequate, because someone asked to unlock a device isn't told what that cause might be, and therefore has no way to challenge the request.

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Five-Eyes Intelligence Services Choose Surveillance Over Security
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 01 Oct '18

01 Oct '18

The “Five Eyes” intelligence group (which includes New Zealand) have issued a statement where they claim that the increasing use of secure encryption is endangering law and order and national security. Here is one of many reactions <https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/09/five-eyes_intel.html>. This whole claim has been repeated so many times it is getting tedious. This group, of all people, with access to the most qualified pool of cryptographic talent in the world, should be able to get an opinion from their own experts on whether this is doable or not -- and if it was, they could show us all how it’s done and make Bruce Schneier and all the rest of the open community of security researchers look like fools. But they won’t do that, because they can’t. Instead, we see this ongoing harping on the issue, as though it can magically be fixed by passing a law or two. The UK (among other countries) has already criminalized the failure to disclose decryption keys <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law>, and decreed that forgetting the key is no excuse.

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Wellywood’s Digital Edge Has Dulled
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 01 Oct '18

01 Oct '18

You may have seen an item in the news lately about a report into the large amount of subsidies that the Government puts into the local film industry. This latest report says that these subsidies pay off in jobs and revenue elsewhere, but independent reviewers question this, saying such conclusions are very sensitive to initial assumptions <https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=120795…>. This extract from one of the linked documents caught my eye: Weta Digital executives ... considered that 10 years ago they were at the forefront of technology and that studios were forced to use them to achieve particular effects, they said that this is no longer true: “the degrees of difference in technology are almost imperceptible”. It is no longer technical capability that wins work, it is price point; they consider themselves a price taker. “If the grant were to disappear tomorrow it would call into question the business itself…the subsidy allows us to compete.” There is “no scenario” where the US studios would pay 20% more for Weta Digital than its competitors. VFX have long been a commodity; it’s actually surprising that Weta Digital has managed to last this long, compared to, say, Rhythm & Hues, which went bust shortly after winning an Oscar for “Life Of Pi” <http://www.fresnobee.com/news/nation-world/national/article128729769.html>. I guess it’s all down to those Government subsidies...

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PB Tech Pleads Guilty To Extended Warranty, Advertising Shenanigans
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 01 Oct '18

01 Oct '18

PB Tech has admitted not properly informing customers of their rights over extended warranties, and also promoting a special offer on Apple watches to 100,000 people when it only had 14 in stock at that price. <https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=120824…>

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An Open Source Resistance Takes Shape as Tech Giants Race To Map the World
by Peter Reutemann 01 Oct '18

01 Oct '18

'Shadma Shaikh, reporting for FactorDaily: Chetan Gowda, 27, was speaking to a room full of students in IIIT Hyderabad for a workshop on OpenStreetMap for beginners organized by Swecha, a non-profit organization to support free software movement last month. There were close to 40 students in the room. Beginners often ask him: Why use open source maps when we already have Google Maps? For Gowda, it was the fact that Google Maps is a global, commercial product and did not capture local detail. Like the old banyan tree that was a major landmark in his hometown Hassan or public benches just outside the town where pedestrians could stop to catch a break or fire catchment areas in Bellandur lake in Bengaluru, India. "It was fascinating to add little but important details of my town to open maps," says Gowda who was introduced in 2013 to OSM or OpenStreetMap, a global community of mappers formed as a collaborative project to create a free editable map of the world in 2004. Since then he has been an active contributor to OpenStreetMap and has conducted many workshops in colleges and institutes to induct more people in the community. Gowda has made 8500 edits in the OpenStreetMap, mainly covering areas in Bengaluru, Hassan and Hyderabad. Gowda and a few other contributors from India are part of a tiny yet growing resistance movement which doesn't want giant corporations to own all the mapping data. For the average consumer, this may not seem like a big deal. But mapping is big business. The market opportunity for suppliers of mapping to the autonomous car industry is going to be worth over $24 billion by 2050, according to one estimate [PDF]. And that's just one industry. A study commissioned by Google in 2015 estimated that industries that run on top of the Global Positioning Satellite Systems and mapping generate nearly $73 billion in annual revenue. Worldwide, that industry is was estimated to generate $150- $270 billion in revenues. Although new research isn't available, with growing smartphone usage and the birth of companies such as Uber and many others it is safe to assume that the industry has only grown bigger. All the more reason why map data can't be held by only a few companies. With Google Maps beginning to charge small and medium-sized businesses and indie developers more for access to its platform, many have started to explore and switch to open source alternatives of Maps, and commercial services such as Here Maps. ' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/18/10/01/1140259 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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VideoLAN Announces Dav1d, a New Libre and Open Source AV1 Decoder
by Peter Reutemann 01 Oct '18

01 Oct '18

'Jean-Baptiste Kempf, president of VideoLan and developer of VLC media player, made the following announced Monday: AV1 is a new video codec by the Alliance for Open Media, composed of most of the important Web companies (Google, Facebook, Netflix, Amazon, Microsoft,...). AV1 has the potential to be up to 20% better than the HEVC codec, but the patents license is totally free, while HEVC patents licenses are insanely high and very confusing. The reference decoder for AV1 is great, but it's a research codebase, so it has a lot to improve. Therefore, the VideoLAN, VLC and FFmpeg communities have started to work on a new decoder, sponsored by the Alliance of Open Media. The goal of this new decoder is: be small, be as fast as possible, be very cross-platform, correctly threaded, libre and (actually) Open Source. Without further due, the code: https://code.videolan.org/videolan/dav1d ' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/18/10/01/1946250 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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Diagnosing The Orion Health Buyout Deal
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 01 Oct '18

01 Oct '18

This Herald article <https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=121336…> reports that healthcare software maker Orion Health is selling off its only profitable division in a bid to get more capital to plough into its remaining businesses. What I found of note was in the answer to the last question in that article, “What went wrong?”: ... the company had faced a perfect storm as many of its Obamacare customers in the US (home to half Orion's revenue) ran out of money and started to cancel orders just as the company needed to invest heavily to move its software to the cloud. It didn't help that the health software Orion bought from Microsoft (which powers its Hospitals solution) turned out to be in much worse shape than it thought ...

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Ubuntu Linux 18.10 Cosmic Cuttlefish Beta Now Available For Desktop, Cloud and Server Versions
by Peter Reutemann 01 Oct '18

01 Oct '18

'Roughly three weeks ahead of the scheduled release of Ubuntu Linux 18.10 "Cosmic Cuttlefish", the latest major update for the popular Linux distro, beta of all of its flavors -- desktop, cloud and server -- is now available for download. From a report: Codenamed 'Cosmic Cuttlefish,' 18.10 continues Ubuntu's proud tradition of integrating the latest and greatest open source technologies into a high-quality, easy-to-use Linux distribution. The team has been hard at work through this cycle, introducing new features and fixing bugs," says Adam Conrad, Software Engineer, Canonical. Conrad further says, "This beta release includes images from not only the Ubuntu Desktop, Server, and Cloud products, but also the Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu Budgie, UbuntuKylin, Ubuntu MATE, Ubuntu Studio, and Xubuntu flavours. The beta images are known to be reasonably free of showstopper CD build or installer bugs, while representing a very recent snapshot of 18.10 that should be representative of the features intended to ship with the final release expected on October 18th, 2018."' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/18/09/30/1758245 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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Tim Berners-Lee Announces Solid, an Open Source Project Which Would Aim To Decentralize the Web
by Peter Reutemann 30 Sep '18

30 Sep '18

'Tim Berners-Lee, the founder of the World Wide Web, thinks it's broken and he has a plan to fix it. The British computer scientist has announced a new project that he hopes will radically change his creation by giving people full control over their data. Tim Berners-Lee: This is why I have, over recent years, been working with a few people at MIT and elsewhere to develop Solid, an open-source project to restore the power and agency of individuals on the web. Solid changes the current model where users have to hand over personal data to digital giants in exchange for perceived value. As we've all discovered, this hasn't been in our best interests. Solid is how we evolve the web in order to restore balance -- by giving every one of us complete control over data, personal or not, in a revolutionary way. Solid is a platform, built using the existing web. It gives every user a choice about where data is stored, which specific people and groups can access select elements, and which apps you use. It allows you, your family and colleagues, to link and share data with anyone. It allows people to look at the same data with different apps at the same time. Solid unleashes incredible opportunities for creativity, problem-solving and commerce. It will empower individuals, developers and businesses with entirely new ways to conceive, build and find innovative, trusted and beneficial applications and services. I see multiple market possibilities, including Solid apps and Solid data storage. Solid is guided by the principle of "personal empowerment through data" which we believe is fundamental to the success of the next era of the web. We believe data should empower each of us. Imagine if all your current apps talked to each other, collaborating and conceiving ways to enrich and streamline your personal life and business objectives? That's the kind of innovation, intelligence and creativity Solid apps will generate. With Solid, you will have far more personal agency over data -- you decide which apps can access it. In an interview with Fast Company, he shared more on Solid and its creation: "I have been imagining this for a very long time," says Berners-Lee. He opens up his laptop and starts tapping at his keyboard. Watching the inventor of the web work at his computer feels like what it might have been like to watch Beethoven compose a symphony: It's riveting but hard to fully grasp. "We are in the Solid world now," he says, his eyes lit up with excitement. He pushes the laptop toward me so I too can see. On his screen, there is a simple-looking web page with tabs across the top: Tim's to-do list, his calendar, chats, address book. He built this app -- one of the first on Solid -- for his personal use. It is simple, spare. In fact, it's so plain that, at first glance, it's hard to see its significance. But to Berners-Lee, this is where the revolution begins. The app, using Solid's decentralized technology, allows Berners-Lee to access all of his data seamlessly -- his calendar, his music library, videos, chat, research. It's like a mashup of Google Drive, Microsoft Outlook, Slack, Spotify, and WhatsApp. The difference here is that, on Solid, all the information is under his control. Every bit of data he creates or adds on Solid exists within a Solid pod -- which is an acronym for personal online data store. These pods are what give Solid users control over their applications and information on the web. Anyone using the platform will get a Solid identity and Solid pod. This is how people, Berners-Lee says, will take back the power of the web from corporations. Starting this week, developers around the world will be able to start building their own decentralized apps with tools through the Inrupt site. Berners-Lee will spend this fall crisscrossing the globe, giving tutorials and presentations to developers about Solid and Inrupt. "What's great about having a startup versus a research group is things get done," he says. These days, instead of heading into his lab at MIT, Berners-Lee comes to the Inrupt offices, which are currently based out of Janeiro Digital, a company he has contracted to help work on Inrupt. For now, the company consists of Berners-Lee; his partner John Bruce, who built Resilient, a security platform bought by IBM; a handful of on-staff developers contracted to work on the project; and a community of volunteer coders. Later this fall, Berners-Lee plans to start looking for more venture funding and grow his team. The aim, for now, is not to make billions of dollars. The man who gave the web away for free has never been motivated by money. Still, his plans could impact billion-dollar business models that profit off of control over data. It's not likely that the big powers of the web will give up control without a fight.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/18/09/30/1122238 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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NextGen: A Feature-Length Movie Done In Blender
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 30 Sep '18

30 Sep '18

Some info here <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TdmIpCAiKQ> about NextGen, an animated movie created by Canadian company Tangent Animation, and done almost entirely using the open-source Blender CG software. They recently sold the distribution rights for the rest of the world (outside China) to Netflix for USD30 million. There’s mention of some additional components (“Cryptomatte” and “Embree”) which are not (yet) part of the official Blender source code; I gather the plan is to merge them in at some point. The video description includes some useful links, including this one <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqSEtTF8hPE> from the 2016 Blender conference, where the Tangent founders discuss why they moved away from Maya and decided to invest in Blender.

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System76's Much-Anticipated Open Source 'Thelio' Linux Computer Will Be Available To Pre-Order Starting Next Month, But Shipping Date and Specs Remain Unclear
by Peter Reutemann 30 Sep '18

30 Sep '18

'Brian Fagioli, writing for BetaNews: When you buy a System76 computer today, you aren't buying a machine manufactured by the company. Instead, the company works with other makers to obtain laptops, which it then loads with a Linux-based operating system -- Ubuntu or its own Pop!_OS. There's nothing really wrong with this practice, but still, System76 wants to do better. The company is currently working to manufacture its own computers ("handcrafted") right here in the USA. By doing this, System76 controls the entire customer experience -- software, service, and hardware. This week, the company announces that the fruits of its labor -- an "open-source computer" -- will be available to pre-order in October. Now, keep in mind, this does not mean the desktop will be available next month. Hell, it may not even be sold in 2018. With that said, pre-ordering will essentially allow you to reserve your spot. To celebrate the upcoming computer, System76 is launching a clever animated video marketing campaign.' -- source: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/18/09/30/1519240 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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MX Player, a Video App Used By More Than 175 Million Users, Debuts OTT Service. Android Enthusiasts Express Concern.
by Peter Reutemann 30 Sep '18

30 Sep '18

MX Player, a video app which has been downloaded more than 500 million times across the globe, kickstarted its OTT (online video streaming) service in India, one of its largest markets, this week. MX Player, which is popular worldwide, has earned a loyal user base over the years for being the app that can run any video file you throw at it, even if your smartphone, tablet, or Android TV box doesn't have high-end specs or updated software. It was acquired by Times Internet, an India-based conglomerate this June, and now the big giant is beginning to show what it intends to do with the app. From a report: [...] All of these titles, including those produced by Times Internet, are now available to MX Player users in India at no charge, Karan Bedi, CEO of MX Player, told VentureBeat in an interview. Like most of Times Internet's properties, which include several TV channels and newspapers, MX Player will count on ads to generate revenue. Betting on ad-driven business model, a popular path in developing markets, could help MX Player quickly convince its existing user base to give the streaming offerings a try as it begins to compete in the Indian market. Star India's ad-supported service Hotstar, which offers about 80 percent of its catalog to customers for free, currently leads the video streaming market in the country. Going forward, Bedi said, the company remains committed to making investments in what made MX Player so popular among customers: The ability to play a plethora of video files on low-end devices. The company won't be bringing its new streaming offerings to the paid version of the MX Player app, MX Pro, he said. Additionally, MX Player's streaming offerings are limited to India, one of its largest markets, for now, although Bedi said the company is working on the right content catalog for other regions. Over at Android sub-reddit, where this story has been discussed, dozens of users expressed their concerns on the direction MX Player appears to be headed. -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/18/09/30/1543213 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 Finally Nearing Support For The Apple Magic Trackpad 2, Thanks To a Google Employee
by Peter Reutemann 30 Sep '18

30 Sep '18

'Michael Larabel, writing for Phoronix: Apple announced the Magic Trackpad 2 almost three years ago to the day while the mainline Linux kernel will finally be supporting this multi-touch device soon. The Magic Trackpad 2 is a wired/wireless touchpad with haptic feedback support and is a much larger touchpad compared to the original Magic Trackpad. There unfortunately hasn't been any mainline Linux kernel support for the Magic Trackpad 2, but some out-of-tree options. [...] However, as seen by this bug report there have been plenty of people since 2015 interested in using the Magic Trackpad 2 on Linux. Fortunately, Sean O'Brien of Google's Chrome OS team has been working on Magic Trackpad 2 support with a focus on getting it mainlined. The patch, which was also reviewed by other Google/ChromeOS developers, is now up to its third and perhaps final revision.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/18/09/30/1722239 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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Richard Stallman Says Linux Code Contributions Can't Be Rescinded
by Peter Reutemann 30 Sep '18

30 Sep '18

'Linux developers who contribute code to the kernel cannot rescind those contributions, according to the software programmer who devised the GNU General Public Licence version 2.0, the licence under which the kernel is released. Richard Stallman, the head of the Free Software Foundation and founder of the GNU Project, told iTWire in response to queries that contributors to a GPLv2-covered program could not ask for their code to be removed. "That's because they are bound by the GPLv2 themselves. I checked this with a lawyer," said Stallman, who started the free software movement in 1984. There have been claims made by many people, including journalists, that if any kernel developers are penalised under the new code of conduct for the kernel project -- which was put in place when Linux creator Linus Torvalds decided to take a break to fix his behavioural issues -- then they would ask for their code to be removed from the kernel... Stallman asked: "But what if they could? What would they achieve by doing so? They would cause harm to the whole free software community. The anonymous person who suggests that Linux contributors do this is urging them to [use a] set of nuclear weapons in pique over an internal matter of the development team for Linux. What a shame that would be." Slashdot reader dmoberhaus shared an article from Motherboard with more perspetives from Eric S. Raymond and LWN.net founder Jonathan Corbet, which also traces the origins of the suggestion. "[A]n anonymous user going by the handle 'unconditionedwitness' called for developers who end up getting banned through the Code of Conduct in the future to rescind their contributions to the Linux kernel 'in a bloc' to produce the greatest effect. "It is worth noting that the email address for unconditionedwitness pointed to redchan.it, a now defunct message board on 8chan that mostly hosted misogynistic memes, many of which were associated with gamergate."' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/18/09/29/055210 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 Now Dominates Azure
by Peter Reutemann 28 Sep '18

28 Sep '18

'Three years ago, Mark Russinovich, CTO of Azure, Microsoft's cloud program, said, "One in four [Azure] instances are Linux." Then, in 2017, it was 40 percent Azure virtual machines (VM) were Linux. Today, Scott Guthrie, Microsoft's executive vice president of the cloud and enterprise group, said in an interview, "Slightly over half of Azure VMs are Linux. That's right. Microsoft's prize cloud, Linux, not Windows Server, is now the most popular operating system. Windows Server isn't going to be making a come back. Every month, Linux goes up," Guthrie said. And it's not just Azure users who are turning to Linux. "Native Azure services are often running on Linux," Guthrie added. "Microsoft is building more of these services. For example, Azure's Software Defined Network (SDN) is based on Linux." It's not just on Azure that Microsoft is embracing Linux. "Look at our simultaneous release of SQL Server on Linux. All of our projects now run on Linux," Guthrie said.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/18/09/27/209211 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 Secretly Logs Users Into Chrome Whenever They Log Into a Google Site
by Peter Reutemann 27 Sep '18

27 Sep '18

'Catalin Cimpanu, writing for ZDNet: Starting with Chrome 69, whenever a Chrome user would access a Google-owned site, the browser would take that user's Google identity and log the user into the Chrome in-browser account system -- also known as Sync. This system, Sync, allows users to log in with their Google accounts inside Chrome and optionally upload and synchronize local browser data (history, passwords, bookmarks, and other) to Google's servers. Sync has been present in Chrome for years, but until now, the system worked independently from the logged-in state of Google accounts. This allowed users to surf the web while logged into a Google account but not upload any Chrome browsing data to Google's servers, data that may be tied to their accounts. Now, with the revelations of this new auto-login mechanism, a large number of users are angry that this sneaky modification would allow Google to link that person's traffic to a specific browser and device with a higher degree of accuracy. That criticism proved to be wrong, as Google engineers have clarified on Twitter that this auto-login operation does not start the process of synchronizing local data to Google's servers, which will require a user click. Furthermore, they also revealed that the reason why this mechanism was added was for privacy reasons in the first place. Chrome engineers said the auto-login mechanism was added in the browser because of shared computers/browsers. Well-respected cryptographer Matthew Green was disappointed by the move. In a post, he wrote: [...] In the rest of this post, I'm going to talk about why this matters. From my perspective, this comes down to basically four points: 1. Nobody on the Chrome development team can provide a clear rationale for why this change was necessary, and the explanations they've given don't make any sense. 2. This change has enormous implications for user privacy and trust, and Google seems unable to grapple with this. 3. The change makes a hash out of Google's own privacy policies for Chrome. 4. Google needs to stop treating customer trust like it's a renewable resource, because they're screwing up badly.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/18/09/24/1351251 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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Password Managers Can Be Tricked Into Believing That Malicious Android Apps Are Legitimate
by Peter Reutemann 26 Sep '18

26 Sep '18

'A new academic study published today reveals that Android-based password managers have a hard time distinguishing between legitimate and fake applications, leading to easy phishing scenarios. From a report: The study looked at how password managers work on modern versions of the Android OS, and which of the OS features attackers can abuse to collect user credentials via phishing attacks carried out via fake, lookalike apps. What the research team found was that password managers, initially developed for desktop browsers, aren't as secure as their desktop versions. The problem comes from the fact that mobile password managers have a hard time associating a user's stored website credentials with a mobile application and then creating a link between that website and an official app. [...] Researchers say they tested the way five Android password managers create internal maps (connections) between a locally installed app and legitimate internet sites and found that four of the five were vulnerable to abuse. Android versions of password managers from Keeper, Dashlane, LastPass, and 1Password were found to be vulnerable and have prompted the user to auto-fill credentials on fake apps during tests. Researchers found that Google's Smart Lock app did not fall for this fake package name trick, and the reason was because it used a system named Digital Asset Links to authenticate and connect apps to a particular online service.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/18/09/26/1534203 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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Vivaldi 2.0 Desktop Browser Featuring Expanded Customization, Sync Across Devices and Privacy Tools Released [Q&A With Founder]
by Peter Reutemann 26 Sep '18

26 Sep '18

'Vivaldi announced Wednesday it has released a major update to its namesake desktop web browser, remaining as one of the rare companies that is still attempting to fight Google's monopoly in the space. Major features in Vivaldi 2.0 include: - Syncing browsers across computers:Version 2.0 allows users to sync data, including bookmarks, passwords, autofill information, and history. Vivaldi uses its own servers to store the data, which is all encrypted end-to-end. - Panels: These are expandable, multi-tasking dashboards that can be opened in the sidebar. - Tab management: Additional features are included that allow for better searching through tabs, stacking them, and even renaming them. - History: Offers new ways to track your usage, including generating statistics and a visual history feature. Vivaldi was founded by Jon von Tetzchner, who also co-founded Opera and served as its chief executive for a number of years. Jon has been vocal about what many find unfair tactics employed by Google and Microsoft to aggressively expand the user bases of their respective browsers.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/18/09/26/0713254 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Fedora 29 Beta Now Available For Download With Improved Raspberry Pi Support
by Peter Reutemann 25 Sep '18

25 Sep '18

'The Fedora Project announced Tuesday the beta availability of Fedora 29 -- the latest version of the free and open-source Fedora OS. From a report: It features updated packages, improved support for Raspberry Pi, and more. "Highlighting Fedora 29 Beta is the addition of modularity across all Fedora editions. First delivered in Fedora 28 Server, modularity enables multiple versions of the same software (like Node.js) to be selected on a per-system basis, with parallel installation done through containers. This can provide some users the ability to use tried-and-true versions of software while enabling other users to work with just-released innovation without impacting the overall stability of the Fedora operating system," says Matthew Miller, Fedora Project Leader. Miller further says, "The importance of ARM to IoT has not been lost on Fedora, and Fedora 29 Beta aims to make the Fedora operating system a home for both ARM and IoT. These features start with enhanced ZRAM support for swap on ARMv7 and aarch64, which can improve the performance and reliability of Fedora 29 Beta on ARM Single Board Computers, like the Raspberry Pi. These devices are used by 'makers' and in developmental IoT solutions."' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/18/09/25/1939240 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Firefox Monitor Will Inform You of Data Breaches
by Peter Reutemann 25 Sep '18

25 Sep '18

'Earlier this year, Mozilla announced Firefox Monitor, a service that will inform you if your online accounts were hacked in a recent data breach. It's now available to general public. A report adds: For the new security-focused tool, Mozilla partnered with Troy Hunt, the renowned security expert behind Have I Been Pwned? (HIBP), which is a database of data breaches that allows anyone to discover whether one of their online accounts has been compromised. The first iteration of Firefox Monitor is, for all intents and purposes, a clone of HIBP. After you enter your email address and hit the scan button, you're told which online services have leaked your personal details (if any). You can also sign up to be notified of any future data breaches involving one or more of your email addresses.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/18/09/25/1928234 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Slack Buys and Shuts Down Intelligent Email App Astro
by Peter Reutemann 25 Sep '18

25 Sep '18

Since we discussed matrix.org at last night's meeting, this might be of interest: 'Slack has acquired email app company Astro to incorporate it into Slack channels. As a result, Astro is shutting down its Mac, iOS, Android, Alexa and Slack apps. They're no longer taking new users and existing ones will lose access on October 10th. Engadget reports: The company said that with over 50 million channels created to date, they're increasingly becoming the platform through which teams collaborate. "But we all know that email is still a very important tool in business communication," said Slack. "We've taken some steps to make it possible to integrate email into Slack, but now we're in a position to make that interoperability much simpler and much, much more powerful." Last year, Astro launched its Astrobot Slack app, which let users manage their emails and check their Office 365 or Google calendars from within Slack. It also allowed them to do one search to pull up results from both Slack and email. "As we explored with Slack how to bring together messaging, email and calendar, it became evident that we would have the biggest impact on workplace communications and realize our original vision by joining Slack," the company said. ' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/18/09/24/2051256 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Sky TV Wants ISPs To Block Pirate Sites
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 25 Sep '18

25 Sep '18

From <https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=121313…>: Sky says ISPs should introduce blocking, because other countries do it. But it doesn’t mention how effective such blocks actually are(n’t). Also, it appears 5% of NZers have discovered the usefulness of Kodi boxes. The article nicely points out one problem with trying to block some of these “pirate” sites: Sky has also taken at least a dozen cases against individuals who accessed illegal Facebook streams of Joseph Parker fights - although it only sought token costs, not damages. However, while Sky's action over illegal Parker fight streaming has been successful, it also illustrates the complications of Sky's website blocking request. It is unlikely any ISP would want to block Facebook.

1 0

topic(s) for this month's meeting?
by Peter Reutemann 23 Sep '18

23 Sep '18

Hi everyone In all that Alexa excitement at the last meeting, I completely forgot to figure out topic/speaker for this month's meeting. Anybody keen on presenting or an interesting topic to discuss? Is actually anybody running the latest 4.19 kernel and noticed significant performance drops (thanks to specter/meltdown)? Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

2 4

Cloudflare Promotes The InterPlanetary File System
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 19 Sep '18

19 Sep '18

Content-distribution company Cloudflare is trying to encourage use of the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) as a way to do distributed hosting of static content <https://blog.cloudflare.com/distributed-web-gateway/>. Instead of using host-specific URLs to find what you want, you specify hashes for the items, and it finds them wherever they are, across all the available IPFS nodes. What Cloudflare is doing is offering an IPFS “gateway”, which means you put the hash into a URL pointing at a Cloudflare server to specify the item. That way you don’t have to set up an IPFS node yourself. Found from this news item <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/09/18/cloudflare_backs_interplanetary_fi…>.

1 0

Ampere’s ARM Server Shipping At Last
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 18 Sep '18

18 Sep '18

A 32-core, 64-bit ARMv8 machine running at up to 3.3GHz in turbo mode is apparently now available <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/09/18/ampere_shipping/>. 125W sounds a pretty modest draw for such a grunty machine. And only a 3-figure price tag, too (OK, maybe 4 figures in NZD).

1 0

A Property Owner Can Be Forced To Trim Trees That Block Wi-Fi
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 18 Sep '18

18 Sep '18

A recent High Court judgement <https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=121272…> has ruled that a neighbour can force you to trim the trees on your property if they block their wireless Internet access. The article notes that this was more of an issue with the 2.6GHz frequency being used for this connection than it might have been for the 700MHz band employed by other providers.

1 0

Amazon Plans To Release At Least 8 New Alexa-Powered Devices, Including A Microwave, Amplifier, and In-Car Gadget
by Peter Reutemann 18 Sep '18

18 Sep '18

'Amazon is planning to release at least 8 new voice-controlled hardware devices before the end of the year, according to CNBC. "The devices include, among others, a microwave oven, an amplifier, a receiver, a subwoofer, and an in-car gadget, people familiar with the matter said," reports CNBC. "All of the devices will be Alexa-enabled, meaning they can easily connect to the voice assistant. Some of the devices will also have Alexa built in." From the report: Amazon is expected to reveal some of these devices at an event later this month, according to an internal document describing the plans. The new devices reflect Amazon's ambition to make its Alexa voice technology ubiquitous by focusing on areas where people spend most of their time -- at home and in the car. Alexa was initially considered a geeky experiment at Amazon. Now it is now one of the most popular voice assistants, leading the growth of the burgeoning smart speaker market, which is expected to be worth $30 billion by 2024, according to Global Market Insights. ' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/18/09/17/2149214 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Vulnerability in WebKit Crashes and Restarts iPhones and iPads
by Peter Reutemann 16 Sep '18

16 Sep '18

'Catalin Cimpanu, writing for ZDNet: A security researcher has discovered a vulnerability in the WebKit rendering engine used by Safari that crashes and restarts the iOS devices -- iPhones and iPads. The vulnerability can be exploited by loading an HTML page that uses specially crafted CSS code. The CSS code isn't very complex and tries to apply a CSS effect known as backdrop-filter to a series of nested page segments (DIVs). Backdrop-filter is a relative new CSS property and works by blurring or color shifting to the area behind an element. This is a heavy processing task, and some software engineers and web developers have speculated that the rendering of this effect takes a toll on iOS' graphics processing library, eventually leading to a crash of the mobile OS altogether. ' -- source: https://apple.slashdot.org/story/18/09/16/239226 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

The Linux Kernel Has Grown By 225, 000 Lines of Code This Year, With Contributions From About 3, 300 Developers
by Peter Reutemann 16 Sep '18

16 Sep '18

'Here's an analysis of the Linux kernel repository that attempts to find some fresh numbers on the current kernel development trends. He writes: The kernel repository is at 782,487 commits in total from around 19.009 different authors. The repository is made up of 61,725 files and from there around 25,584,633 lines -- keep in mind there is also documentation, Kconfig build files, various helpers/utilities, etc. So far this year there has been 49,647 commits that added 2,229,836 lines of code while dropping 2,004,759 lines of code. Or a net gain of just 225,077 lines. Keep in mind there was the removal of some old CPU architectures and other code removed in kernels this year so while a lot of new functionality was added, thanks to some cleaning, the kernel didn't bloat up as much as one might have otherwise expected. In 2017 there were 80,603 commits with 3,911,061 additions and 1,385,507 deletions. Given just over one quarter to go, on a commit and line count 2018 might come in lower than the two previous years. Linus Torvalds remains the most frequent committer at just over 3% while the other top contributions to the kernel this year are the usual suspects: David S. Miller, Arnd Bergmann, Colin Ian King, Chris Wilson, and Christoph Hellwig. So far in 2018 there were commits from 3,320 different email addresses. This is actually significantly lower than in previous years.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/18/09/16/172217 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Linux Distro Elive Emerges Alive After 8-Year Hibernation
by Peter Reutemann 11 Sep '18

11 Sep '18

'Designed to run on minimal hardware, Elive is very much a passion project of its leader, Samuel F Baggen. Based on Debian, the first version took a bow in 2005. The second stable version made an appearance in 2010 and it has been a long eight years for the third stable version to become available. The Register: Elive has an impressively low bar to entry, with hardware requirements for the distribution coming in at 256 MB RAM and a 500 MHz CPU, meaning that some very elderly silicon is theoretically going to be able to enjoy the highly polished Enlightenment desktop. "Theoretically" because after The Register took Elive 3.0.0 out for a spin on a relatively low-powered laptop, we'd frankly baulk at running it on anything much slower than a 533MHz Core 2 with at least 512 MB RAM. However, the Enlightenment UI is undeniably an attractive desktop, particularly if a macOS-alike dock is your thing, and runs at an impressive lick even on hardware that lacks graphics acceleration. At its core, Elive is based on the Debian 8 distribution (aka Jessie), using the 3.16 kernel and version 0.17.6 of the Enlightenment X11 Window Manager. It comes replete with a full set of applications, including the ubiquitous LibreOffice and Gimp, along with a variety of productivity and entertainment tools, some of which are Elive's own. Unlike the previous version of Elive, 3.0.0 removes the requirement of donating to the project in order to install the thing locally (although Baggen was quick to tell The Reg that cost-free alternatives existed, but often with annoying processes).' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/18/09/11/1121223 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Exploit Vendor Drops Tor Browser Zero-Day on Twitter
by Peter Reutemann 11 Sep '18

11 Sep '18

'Zerodium, a company that buys and sells vulnerabilities in popular software, has published details today on Twitter about a zero-day vulnerability in the Tor Browser, a Firefox-based browser used by privacy-conscious users for navigating the web through the anonymity provided by the Tor network. The vulnerability is a bypass of the NoScript extension that's included by default with all Tor Browser distributions. Once bypassed, an attacker can run malicious code inside the Tor Browser, code that under certain circumstances would have been stopped by NoScript. "This Tor Browser exploit was acquired by Zerodium many months ago as a zero-day and was shared with our government customers," Zerodium CEO Chaouki Bekrar told ZDNet in an interview. "We have decided to disclose this exploit as it has reached its end-of-life and it's not affecting Tor Browser version 8 which was released last week." The NoScript extension released a patch in record time today to fix the vulnerability, two hours after Zerodium dropped its code on Twitter.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/18/09/10/216238 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Mozilla Working On Google Translate Integration In Firefox
by Peter Reutemann 10 Sep '18

10 Sep '18

' Back in 2014, Mozilla partnered with Bing to translate webpages via Firefox in a similar fashion to Chrome's implementation of Google Translate. The company also added support for Yandex Translate in Firefox 41 in mid-2015, but it went all dark soon after and very few updates were issued. Now, Mozilla is finally starting to add support for Google Translate to the translation engine built into Firefox. gHacks reports: While the feature is not fully functional yet, it is an indicator that Mozilla has not forgotten the translate feature completely. Users who enable the translate functionality in Firefox on about:config will notice that Google is the selected translation engine. Google Translate cannot be used currently in Firefox; the browser throws an error message when you hit the translate button in the UI. Bing and Yandex don't seem to work either at this point in time even though Firefox seems to try and translate the page. The "there has been an error translating this page" error is thrown eventually as well. Google Translate requires API access keys and that is usually only available if companies or users pay for the key. It is unclear if Mozilla plans to make a deal with Google or if users will be required to use their own API keys for the functionality. The latter would surely be very limiting. ' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/18/09/10/0238218 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Worries Arise About Security of New WebAuthn Protocol
by Peter Reutemann 10 Sep '18

10 Sep '18

'"A team of security researchers has raised the alarm about some cryptography-related issues with the newly released WebAuthn passwordless authentication protocol," reports ZDNet. "The new WebAuthn protocol will allow users of a device -- such as a computer or a smartphone -- to authenticate on a website using a USB security key, a biometric solution, or his computer or smartphone's password." But researchers say that because WebAuthn uses weak algorithms for the operations of registering a new device, they can pull off some attacks against it. "If converted into a practical exploit, the ECDAA attacks discussed in the article would allow attackers to steal the key from a [server's] TPM, which would allow attackers to effectively clone the user's hardware security token remotely," Arciszewski, one of the researchers, told ZDNet. "The scenarios that follow depend on how much trust was placed into the hardware security token," he added. "At minimum, I imagine it would enable 2FA bypasses and re-enable phishing attacks. However, if companies elected to use hardware security tokens to obviate passwords, it would allow direct user impersonation by attackers." Attacks aren't practical, and experts say the root cause relies in badly written documentation that may fool some implementers into supporting the old algorithms instead of newer and more solid ones. The FIDO Alliance was notified and has started work on updating its docs so it won't look like it's recommending ECDAA or RSASSA-PKCS1-v1_5. "PKCS1v1.5 is bad. The exploits are almost old enough to legally drink alcohol in the United States," Arciszewski said.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/18/09/10/0227233 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Popular VPNs Contained Code Execution Security Flaws, Despite Patches
by Peter Reutemann 10 Sep '18

10 Sep '18

'Researchers have uncovered vulnerabilities in popular virtual private network (VPN) software, ProtonVPN and NordVPN, which can lead to the execution of arbitrary code by attackers. From a report: Last week, Cisco Talos security researchers said the security flaws, CVE-2018-3952 and CVE-2018-4010, permit code execution by attackers on Microsoft Windows machines. The vulnerabilities are similar to a Windows privilege escalation security flaw uncovered by VerSprite, which is tracked as CVE-2018-10169. Security patches were applied in April by both clients to resolve the original security hole, but according to Talos, "despite the fix, it is still possible to execute code as an administrator on the system." The initial vulnerability was caused by similar design issues in both clients. The interface for both NordVPN and ProtonVPN execute binaries with the permission of a logged-in user, and this includes the selection of a VPN configuration option, such as a desired VPN server location. This information is sent to a service when "connect" is clicked by way of an OpenVPN configuration file. However, VerSprite was able to create a crafted OpenVPN file which could be sent to the service, loaded, and executed.' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/18/09/10/118217 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Nearly Half of American Households Will Own a Smart Speaker by 2019, Study Says
by Peter Reutemann 10 Sep '18

10 Sep '18

'Almost half of American households will have a smart speaker by next year, according to a new study from Adobe. From a report: The study, released Monday, finds that 32% of the country already owns a smart speaker and another 16% plan on getting one this holiday season. And just as importantly, people are using those speakers. "Technology trends come and go, but we think voice is here to stay," said Colin Morris, director of product management for Adobe Analytics, in a statement. "Consumers continue to embrace voice as a means to engage their devices and the Internet. It's a trend that has fundamentally changed the face of computing." A notable indicator of the growing popularity of the speakers is how comfortable people are talking to the device in front of others. And that number is on the rise: 72% of smart speaker owners say they use voice assistants in front of others. (Only 29% of people without a smart speaker are comfortable with doing so.)' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/18/09/10/1833235 I thought, that this would be of interest, due to our Alexa topic last month. Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

9 Useful Examples of Touch Command in Linux
by Peter Reutemann 10 Sep '18

10 Sep '18

'Touch command in Linux is used for changing file timestamps however one of the most common usages of touch command includes creating a new empty file. With the touch command, you can change access, modify and change time of files and folders in Linux. You can update the timestamps or modify them to a date in the past.' -- source: https://linuxhandbook.com/touch-command/ To be honest, I only ever use it to create an empty file... Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

2 1

Hollywood goes open source
by Peter Reutemann 10 Sep '18

10 Sep '18

'Out of 200 of the most popular movies of all time, the top 137 were either visual-effects driven or animated. What did many of these blockbusters have in common? They were made with open-source software. That was the message David Morin, chairman of the Joint Technology Committee on Virtual Production, brought to The Linux Foundation's Open Source Summit in Vancouver, Canada. To help movie makers bring rhyme and reason to open-source film-making, The Linux Foundation had joined forces with The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to form the Academy Software Foundation. The academy is meant to be a neutral forum for open-source developers both in the motion picture and broader media industries to share resources and collaborate on technologies for image creation, visual effects, animation, and sound. The founding members include Blue Sky Studios, Cisco, DreamWorks Animation, Epic Games, Google Cloud, Intel, Walt Disney Studios, and Weta Digital. It's a true marriage of technology and media-driven businesses.' -- source: https://www.zdnet.com/article/hollywood-goes-open-source/ Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Beta Release Nears For BeOS-inspired Open Source OS Haiku
by Peter Reutemann 09 Sep '18

09 Sep '18

'Just over 17 years since the project launched, and more than 18 years since the last release of the operating system that inspired it, the open source Haiku OS is nearing a beta release.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/18/09/08/2032253 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Despite 'Painful' Spectre Response, Linus Torvalds Says He Still Loves Speculative Execution
by Peter Reutemann 09 Sep '18

09 Sep '18

'At this year's Open Source Summit, Linus Torvalds sat for a wide-ranging "keynote" interview with Dirk Hohndel, chief open source officer at VMWare, which has been partially transcribed below. And Linus explained, among other things, why the last merge window was harder than others: One of the issues we have is when we've had these hardware security issues, and they've kept happening now, the last year -- they're kept under wraps. So we knew about the issue for the last several months, but because it was secret and we weren't allowed to talk about it, we couldn't do our usual open development model. We do the best we can, and people really care deeply about getting a good product out, but when you have to do things in secret, and when you can't use all the nice infrastructure for development and for testing that we have for all the usual code, it just is way more painful than it should be. And then that just means that, especially when the information becomes public during what is otherwise a busy period anyway, it's just annoying... I still love speculative execution. Don't get me wrong. I used to work for a CPU company. We did it in software, back when I worked there. I think a CPU has to do speculative execution. It's somewhat sad that then people didn't always think about or didn't always heed the warnings about what can go wrong when you take a few shortcuts in the name of making it slightly simpler for everybody, because you're going to throw away all that work anyway, so why bother to do it right. And that's when the security -- every single security problem we've had has been basically of that kind, where people knew that "Hey, this is speculative work. If something goes wrong we'll throw all the data away, so we don't need to be as careful as we would otherwise." I think it was a good lesson for the industry, but it was certainly not a fun lesson for us on the OS side, where we had to do a lot of extra work for problems that weren't our problems. It feels somehow unfair. I mean, when we have a security bug that was our own fault, it's like, "Okay, it was us screwing up. It's fair that we have to do all the work to then fix our own bugs." But it feels slightly less fair when you have to fix somebody else's... "The good news -- I mean the really good news, and I'm serious about this -- is that the bugs have become clearly more and more esoteric," Linus adds. "So it impacts fewer and fewer cases, and clearly hardware people at Intel and other places are now so aware of it that I'm hoping we're really getting to the dregs of the hardware security bugs, and going forward we'll have much fewer of them. I think we're going to the better days, when A.) we got the bugs fixed, and B.) people were thinking about them beforehand."' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/18/09/09/0048248 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Booting Debian Jessie On An SGI UV-1000 Supercomputer
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 07 Sep '18

07 Sep '18

Just one of several YouTube vids showing a supercomputer run a stock-standard Linux kernel <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8hKjPh5SVo>. Note the part where it says “System RAM: 2096630MB”.

1 0

Tor Browser Gets a Redesign, Switches To New Firefox Quantum Engine
by Peter Reutemann 06 Sep '18

06 Sep '18

'The Tor Browser has rolled out a new interface with the release of v8. From a report: The Tor Browser has always been based on the Firefox codebase, but it lagged behind a few releases. Mozilla rolled out a major overhaul of the Firefox codebase in November 2017, with the release of Firefox 57, the first release in the Firefox Quantum series. Firefox Quantum came with a new page rendering engine, a new add-ons API, and a new user interface called the Photon UI. Because these were major, code-breaking changes, it took the smaller Tor team some time to integrate all of them into the Tor Browser codebase and make sure everything worked as intended. The new Tor Browser 8, released yesterday, is now in sync with the most recent version of Firefox, the Quantum release, and also supports all of its features. This means the Tor Browser now uses the same modern Photon UI that current Firefox versions use, it supports the same speed-optimized page rendering engine and has also dropped support for the old XUL-based add-ons system for the new WebExtensions API system used by Chrome, Opera, Vivaldi, Brave, and the rest of the Chromium browsers.' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/18/09/06/1651255 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

400, 000 Websites Vulnerable Through Exposed .git Directories
by Peter Reutemann 06 Sep '18

06 Sep '18

'Open .git directories are a bigger cybersecurity problem than many might imagine, at least according to a Czech security researcher who discovered almost 400,000 web pages with an open .git directory possibly exposing a wide variety of data. From a report: Vladimir Smitka began his .git directory odyssey in July when he began looking at Czech websites to find how many were improperly configured and allow access to their .git folders within the file versions repository. Open .git directories are a particularly dangerous issue, he said, because they can contain a great deal of sensitive information. "Information about the website's structure, and sometimes you can get very sensitive data such as database passwords, API keys, development IDE settings, and so on. However, this data shouldn't be stored in the repository, but in previous scans of various security issues, I have found many developers that do not follow these best practices," Smitka wrote. Smitka queried 230 million websites to discover the 390,000 allowing access to their .git directories. The vast majority of the websites with open directories had a .com TLD with .net, .de, .org and uk comprising most of the others.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/18/09/06/1954253 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Shutter screenshotting application - no edit button
by Peter Reutemann 06 Sep '18

06 Sep '18

Hi everyone In case you're a Shutter user for capturing screenshots, you may have noticed that the "Edit" button in the main window is disabled. Apparently, shutter hasn't been updated for a while and it is missing some older libraries, like on my Linux Mint 18. However, this is easily fixed: https://itsfoss.com/shutter-edit-button-disabled/ Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Firefox 62 Arrives With Variable Fonts, Automatic Dark Theme on macOS, and Better Scrolling on Android
by Peter Reutemann 05 Sep '18

05 Sep '18

'Mozilla today released Firefox 62 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. The release builds on Firefox Quantum, which the company calls "by far the biggest update since Firefox 1.0 in 2004." Version 62 brings variable fonts, automatic dark theme on macOS, and better scrolling on Android. Firefox 62 for the desktop is available for download now on Firefox.com, and all existing users should be able to upgrade to it automatically. As always, the Android version is trickling out slowly on Google Play. The latest iOS version is available on Apple's App Store.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/18/09/05/1423259 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Official Chrome Extension of Cloud Storage Service Mega Caught Stealing Passwords, Cryptocurrency Private Keys
by Peter Reutemann 05 Sep '18

05 Sep '18

'The official Chrome extension for the MEGA.nz file sharing service has been compromised with malicious code that steals usernames and passwords, but also private keys for cryptocurrency accounts, ZDNet reports. From the report: The malicious behavior was found in the source code of the MEGA.nz Chrome extension version 3.39.4, released as an update earlier today. Google engineers have already intervened and removed the extension from the official Chrome Web Store, and also disabled the extension for existing users. According to an analysis of the extension's source, the malicious code triggered on sites such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft, GitHub, the MyEtherWallet and MyMonero web wallet services, and the IDEX cryptocurrency trading platform. The malicious code would record usernames, passwords, and other session data that attackers would need to log in and impersonate users. If the website managed cryptocurrency, the attacker would also extract the private keys needed to access users' funds.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/18/09/05/1841240 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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Mobile Spyware Maker mSpy Leaks Millions of Sensitive Records
by Peter Reutemann 05 Sep '18

05 Sep '18

'mSpy, the makers of a software-as-a-service product that claims to help more than a million paying customers spy on the mobile devices of their kids and partners, has leaked millions of sensitive records online, including passwords, call logs, text messages, contacts, notes and location data secretly collected from phones running the stealthy spyware. Krebs On Security reports: Less than a week ago, security researcher Nitish Shah directed KrebsOnSecurity to an open database on the Web that allowed anyone to query up-to-the-minute mSpy records for both customer transactions at mSpy's site and for mobile phone data collected by mSpy's software. The database required no authentication. Before it was taken offline sometime in the past 12 hours, the database contained millions of records, including the username, password and private encryption key of each mSpy customer who logged in to the mSpy site or purchased an mSpy license over the past six months. The private key would allow anyone to track and view details of a mobile device running the software, Shah said. In addition, the database included the Apple iCloud username and authentication token of mobile devices running mSpy, and what appear to be references to iCloud backup files. Anyone who stumbled upon this database also would have been able to browse the Whatsapp and Facebook messages uploaded from mobile devices equipped with mSpy. Other records exposed included the transaction details of all mSpy licenses purchased over the last six months, including customer name, email address, mailing address and amount paid. Also in the data set were mSpy user logs -- including the browser and Internet address information of people visiting the mSpy Web site. ' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/18/09/04/2236213 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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